metric system

Post by **ttocs** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:17 am

I remember when I was in grade school that the teachers said that sooner or later we(the US) would eventually switch over to metric. Now as an adult of course I see why and wonder what ever happened to this, was my teacher the only one beside me now that thought or taught this? How come we can loose pluto as a planet but we can't get rid of the standard US set that our kids do not understand till HS. Now with the use of expensive calculators the kids never memorize the conversions the way I had to and are lost with out them so maybe multiplying by 10s would be easier?

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:47 am

The UK did it. Hell, almost every other country that used another system did it.

From wikipedia:
"Only three countries (Burma (Myanmar), Liberia, and the United States) have yet to adopt the International System of Units as their official system of measurement."

You're in good company.

Post by **joerg** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:33 am

As long as i worked in the US i can tell the most ass backward thing is your system when it comes to buying screws or tools!

I´m pretty sure that most of u can´t even tell the socket size from a ratchet set from smallest to biggest socket without looking at it!

Post by **Bfowler** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:57 am

yeah, i dont get it either. according to my engineering professor, when using radians, the US measurment system lines up beter....but i'm not so sure.

i try and use m/mm any time i can...but units of weight still mess with me

Post by **ttocs** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:13 am

why would the size of the socket matter if the numbers on the side are different? I can still look at a 9/32" screw and know that I can use my 7mm if I want to. Just because we use fractions doesn't me us yanks can't tell big or little and if there was a competition to line up the sockets from big to little we could kick yer ass in metric and standard competition!!!

I think most men have a skewed idea of what 8" is, but that goes on either side of the pond....

wash with gasoline · Post by **wash with gasoline** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:28 am

I hate the US measurement system to, it makes so much more sense to use multiples of 10 ...but i dont see it happening any time soon, you cant even buy a metric tape measure in a store, unless you get one with "standard" on one side of it.

I always use metric if i am building anything complicated out of wood, so much quicker

paintguy · Post by **paintguy** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:12 am

You want to come over to my world! I was born and brought up with the UK's imperial system, but learnt everything in metric whilst at school.

I flick between the two systems all the time, and often use both together, switching between inches and mm, mils and microns, litres and ounces. Gets confusing sometimes but my old brain seems to manage in the end

As an example - I'm trying to work out what CuFt enclosure size I can fit in my boot with 30CM depth to play with, a 12" or 15" sub, using 18mm MDF

Misfire · Post by **Misfire** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:19 am

I guess we all have to complain about something. I grew up with the standard and it works... one says 1/2" and one says 13mm... it all loosens and tightens the same. Just like whats the difference between a 223 and a 5.56? Nothing, they still shoot the same. Just my thought.

Post by **stipud** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:06 pm

paintguy wrote:You want to come over to my world! I was born and brought up with the UK's imperial system, but learnt everything in metric whilst at school.

I flick between the two systems all the time, and often use both together, switching between inches and mm, mils and microns, litres and ounces. Gets confusing sometimes but my old brain seems to manage in the end

As an example - I'm trying to work out what CuFt enclosure size I can fit in my boot with 30CM depth to play with, a 12" or 15" sub, using 18mm MDF

Canada is like that too. We are taught metric, but imperial is used colloquially as well. We usually rate cars by horsepower and MPG. A person's weight or height is usually imperial, while distance by car is metric... but nautical distance is imperial. However distances by car over 100km are rated in how many hours it would take to drive, since our highways are so straight and empty.

Post by **ttocs** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:46 pm

stipud wrote:
paintguy wrote:You want to come over to my world! I was born and brought up with the UK's imperial system, but learnt everything in metric whilst at school.

I flick between the two systems all the time, and often use both together, switching between inches and mm, mils and microns, litres and ounces. Gets confusing sometimes but my old brain seems to manage in the end

As an example - I'm trying to work out what CuFt enclosure size I can fit in my boot with 30CM depth to play with, a 12" or 15" sub, using 18mm MDF
Canada is like that too. We are taught metric, but imperial is used colloquially as well. We usually rate cars by horsepower and MPG. A person's weight or height is usually imperial, while distance by car is metric... but nautical distance is imperial. However distances by car over 100km are rated in how many hours it would take to drive, since our highways are so straight and empty.

THAT is really fucked up mang! Sorry you get sucked into our pain in the ass.

Post by **Eric D** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 6:35 am

I use both systems, and prefer metric as well for distance measurements. I would prefer to stick with imperial for temp, and volume, as I am so used to those.

I am not certain, but I am pretty sure we will never change over. At least not in my lifetime. My best guess is due to the massive size of our economy. We simply have too much crap which would need to change over.

Where I used to work we had tons of CNC milling machines. Only the newest ran on metric as an option, but all the rest ran in thousandths of an inch. 0.001 These machines were old, but still served their purpose. When a customer would send us a job in metric, we had to convert it over to imperial so we could make programs the machines would understand. This conversion could take some time depending on the job. We were just one place. Imagine all the old equipment in mass production environments here in the USA which would take forever to redo.

Pedi · Post by **Pedi** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 6:37 am

Imperial sucks, welcome to the future - and Europe.

It is only the UKs that have not "got it" yet...

Metric rules - period !

bretti_kivi · Post by **bretti_kivi** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:04 am

I was taught (I left school in 1990) metric. I cannot stand using cubic feet and such, it is an absolute pain. Litres, decimetres and mm make so much more sense it's not funny.

Having said that, I use metric every single day and translate to imperial ONLY for US/UK forums or my parents.
I have nothing against MPG - though I prefer l/100.

Bret

Post by **stipud** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:39 am

ttocs wrote:THAT is really fucked up mang! Sorry you get sucked into our pain in the ass.

I dunno I kinda like having two systems. Sometimes it just makes sense to use imperial... it just seems wrong to me to rate a car by kilowatts.

Converting between the two sucks, but using one or the other exclusively is easy for me.

oldschoolfan · Post by **oldschoolfan** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:25 am

joerg wrote:As long as i worked in the US i can tell the most ass backward thing is your system when it comes to buying screws or tools!

I´m pretty sure that most of u can´t even tell the socket size from a ratchet set from smallest to biggest socket without looking at it!

Of course our silly outdated system is easy for us because that is what we grew up with. I do a lot of mechanical work for fun and it can be a pain depending on what vehicle you are working on. The year really comes into play with our American makes. Depending on the era you could be switching back and forth between the two systems of measure on the same vehicle. Most fasteners are now metric on American makes but they still sneak in some "standard" fasteners as well.

Yes of course the metric system is more logical for units of measure, just ask Spock.

Misfire · Post by **Misfire** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:17 pm

I just hope that this everything is easy just fades away..... I love the older amps because they were different and weren't always logical. Look at all the amps today..... easy, cheap, and all from China. You guys press the easy button and I will keep working on my old 70 runner with MS amps. LMAO.

PS. Spock won't answer his phone. What the hell???