Three Countries that Do Not Use the Metric System

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: spackard
Hold out a piece of string.
Divide it by 2. Easy, right?
Divide it by 4. Good.
Divide it by 10. This is left as an exercise for the reader.


OK, while we are at it, divide it by 12...is that a comparable level of difficulty to 10 ?

What about thousandths ?

Yards ? they are 3s

5280 feet in a mile ??? what sort of folding exercise gets you that ???

Is the distance an ox could plough in one day really relevant these days ?

Standard is what makes people say "torque equals horsepower at 5252 RPM"


Painful to fold, but trivial to multiply--start with a base of an inch, and then it's nothing to go up from there.

Both systems though have the same dividing issue--eventually one divides by ten, hundred, thousand so as to measure really small things.

I still say highway marker signs should have been done in km, and the exit signs too. Most people don't notice them and wouldn't care--they are just numbers--and those who can appreciate them would either learn the conversion factor, or perhaps even just learn to think in those units.

But as a taxpayer I would be very against redoing the signs today! Just on new signs going up.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: spackard
Hold out a piece of string.
Divide it by 2. Easy, right?
Divide it by 4. Good.
Divide it by 10. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

Is dividing by 2 or by 4 somehow prohibited in the decimal system?


Yep--no such thing as half a centimeter. But you are allowed to have 5mm.

I still love seeing car wheelbases measured in mm.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: supton
Yep--no such thing as half a centimeter. But you are allowed to have 5mm.

Right. Just like you're not allowed to have half foot, but you can have 6 inches.

 

[Whitewolf]

All sorts of fun examples of 'old' measurement.

8 Furlongs = 1 mile. 1 Furlong = 40 Rods or 10 Chains.

We still use acres though and a traditional 'old' definition of an acre was 1 furlong long by 1 chain wide.

I can't believe that we had to learn all this stuff in school when I was a kid.

 

[andyd]

What are the other 2 countries who don't use metric measurements? Wrench wise 5/16 = 8mm, 7/16 =11mm. 9/16= 14 mm, 3/4 =19 mm 7/8 =22mm

 

[NHHEMI]

Originally Posted By: finmile
About changing from one system to another.

In Europe many national currencies were replaced with euro currency in 2002. The fixed exchange rate for our Finnish markka was 5.94573. I.e. one euro was about six markkas.

I admit that it was painful at first to use the new currency. At the beginning you had to convert everything in your head from euros back to markkas to understand the prices. But within a year or so the euro currency started to feel more natural. On daily purchases there was no need to convert prices back to markka anymore.

Now after more than ten years I don’t miss or think (or even remember) markka anymore. It’s a thing of the past now. And there are clear benefits from eurozone also. With a common currency it’s easier to travel and do web purchases within Europe. And as euro and dollar are in practice on par, it’s easy to understand the US prices too without any extra calculations.

Sure, sometimes people think nostalgically about the old markka. And it’s fun to do the conversion back to markka to emphasize that something is expensive. For example an apartment that costs 200k euros. Wow, that’s over one million markkas!!

But on daily life I’m sure that everyone in Finland have fully adapted to the euro currency.

I’m sure that it would be the same learning process for you too if you changed from the imperial system to the metric system. Maybe it would be a pain for a year but after ten years you would be fully adapted to the new system.


Why put people through it though? Just no need.

 

[kb27]

Funny, the metric world of sockets still have to live with 1/4", 3/8", 1/2" drive.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: userfriendly
What was Arlo Guthrie "Coming into Los Angeles" with?


A bunch of high-grade pot?

 

[bbhero]

I tend to agree with you here on this. One side note here guys.... In medication we use the metric system. So if you have a Patient Controlled Analgesic pump set up.... Makes sure its programmed right. 0.2 mg of IV Dilaudid is fine every 10 minutes. 2.0 mg of IV Dilaudid every Ten minutes is NO bueno.

 

[Cujet]

I have the answer to the question as to why.

Our aerospace industry uses parts made to a specification. From simple sheet metal screws, to nuts, bolts, washers and all the way to exotic, ultra high pressure fluid fittings.

Those specifications denote a specific level of performance. A change to the metric system eliminates a world of knowledge.

Now, most of us know that an 8 mm dia bolt and a 5/16th inch diameter bolt made from the same material will be functionally the same.

But, what many don't really understand is whether a 3mm rivet with the same rivet spacing as a -4 rivet will result in the same structural properties. In fact, we know they are not the same. The 3mm rivet is a 7 thousandths smaller, and can't carry the load as well. Nor is it as resistant to sudden failure. We cannot substitute one for the other without grave risk or complete re-design of the aircraft. And the step up to a 4mm rivet leaves holes that are too big for structural integrity without other re-design.

The change to sheet metal is similar. Our typical thicknesses were developed by aerospace engineers. Knowing the requirements. A metric equiv is, quite simply, an oddball dimension. Who wants to purchase 2.391 mm sheet metal?

 

[Kiwi_ME]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: userfriendly
What was Arlo Guthrie "Coming into Los Angeles" with?


A bunch of high-grade pot?

4.4 lbs if I recall.

 

[Cujet]

Originally Posted By: Kiwi_ME
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: userfriendly
What was Arlo Guthrie "Coming into Los Angeles" with?


A bunch of high-grade pot?

4.4 lbs if I recall.


hahahhahahahaha. Got it instantly.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: Nate1979
So only those who use the metric system are civilized? LOL.


well, you tell me.

Quote:
What does the United States, Liberia and Myanmar have in common?

 

[kb27]

When I was young and schooling, I thought fractions was some evil school system designed to make you fail maths.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Cujet
Our aerospace industry uses parts made to a specification. From simple sheet metal screws, to nuts, bolts, washers and all the way to exotic, ultra high pressure fluid fittings.

Those specifications denote a specific level of performance. A change to the metric system eliminates a world of knowledge.

I can't say positively, but I'm under the impression that the Canadian industry still uses those measures, too. That was never an issue that was dealt with by switching to metric. We still use flight levels, identical to those in the States, and they use knots and inches of mercury, and last time I checked, load tables were still in pounds. As I mentioned earlier, the problems with fuel volume measurements were always there, since even flight service stations had to sell in Imperial gallons, not U.S. gallons, and now have to sell in litres, because that's regulated under weights and measures. But, gallon per hour ratings tend to be predicated on a U.S. gallon.

I would guess that the engineering parts in aerospace remain the same up here, too.

 

[OneEyeJack]

I had a problem with an inches to millimeter conversion of accessories for a gas turbine engine in the 70's for a Canadian customer. We had to produce drawings in metric (before computers). One of the draftsmen very diligently converted the numbers on his new drawing converting inches to millimeters but he still held the tolerances in millimeters to 4 decimal places. The machinist came to me in a sweat saying that God himself could not hold such a tolerance and could I please help him out.

 

[finmile]

Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
Why put people through it though? Just no need.

That's a good guestion.

I guess if someone could promise that the GDP in USA will increase significantly when you switch to the metric system, you would find the motivation to do it. But if there isn't this kind of opportunity for extra economic growth available, I agree that there's no point to go through all that trouble.

Maybe the new trade agreements (TPP and TTIP) could create big enough push towards standardized measurements for goods?

 

[surfstar]

Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
Why put people through it though? Just no need.


How about preventing another one of these:? "NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation"

 

[Nate1979]

Originally Posted By: surfstar
Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
Why put people through it though? Just no need.


How about preventing another one of these:? "NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation"


Switching to metric isn't going to suddenly cure stupidity. Even within metric you can still have errors when doing various calculations, unit conversions. Will the errors be reduced less than the cost to change to metric? Not to mention why would we want to switch to a useless (day to day usage) temperature scale that is celsius?

 

[surfstar]

Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Originally Posted By: surfstar
Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
Why put people through it though? Just no need.


How about preventing another one of these:? "NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation"


Switching to metric isn't going to suddenly cure stupidity. Even within metric you can still have errors when doing various calculations, unit conversions. Will the errors be reduced less than the cost to change to metric? Not to mention why would we want to switch to a useless (day to day usage) temperature scale that is celsius?


By eliminating the conversion from ever taking place, you have just eliminated a potential failure/error point.

I agree that C is weird for daily human temps, using F all our lives, though!
0 freezing 100 boiling, does make sense, logically