US switching to metric system?
 

While fooling around with metric/imperial/US conversions I started wondering what are the chances of the US switching to metric? What would be the disadvantages (b/c the advantages are numerous)? How long would it take? Who would protest the loudest? And how long after the switch would it take to "get it out of the blood"?

I know that somewhere in the 1970's Congress passed something about going metric and that was that, folks. I know of 1 (one) road sign in both miles and kilometers (on the freeway going from Durham NC to RDU airport, it gives the distance to somewhere as 4 mi, 6 km). And I've spent half of my life in the US. Juggling between units takes getting used to, but the metric system is just sooooo much easier to use. I mean, we all use a base 10 number system, so using base 10 units would be logical, wouldn't it? Why stuff your memory with random numbers from archaic measuring systems such as the temperature at which water freezes or boils, how many feet are in a mile (nautical mile, statute mile, USGS mile - all three are different), how many ounces are in a pound and how many in a quart? I remember talking about this with an American once and he said "Well, it's easy to remember - a pint's a pound the whole world round. And how much does your liter of water weight?" At least the US uses the same time measurement system as the rest of the world. And the same calender (which isn't the case in Russia).

The only thing that is useful in the US system is that fractions of feet and inches are usually given as powers of 2 (1/4, 3/8. 7/32, etc.). I can't think of anything else.

Are there any countries besides the US which still don't use the metric system?
How did the transition look like in coutries which have done it? Was it all overnight, or were both systems officially in use for weeks or months? Would it be less painful if it was done little by little? Say, first the temperature would be switched to C, then maybe weights, and then volumes and distances?

The switch wouldn't be that hard, I guess. Today, you find both systems on food. I remember that my first encounter with the metric system was in middle school science class. Plus textbooks in physics and mechanics use metric units, not imperial like in the 70's. Scientists wouldn't have much of a problem switching, immigrants and naturalized Americans would feel at home. But then there'd be voices of trying to take away what's american and so on.

I think the only possible way to effect such a change is to mandate a complete and clean switch (eliminating English units and completely replacing with Metric units) at a specific point in time. If that were to happen (which in itself is unlikely), then there would be an unprecedented amount of screaming and gnashing of teeth, and whoever politically supported the mandate would be quickly tossed out on their rears... and the mandate would quickly be overturned with the replacement politicians...

IMHO, I think the vast majority of US citizens couldn't give a hoot about the system that the rest of the world uses, and so have absolutely no desire to change it. There's basically no benefit to the average person... they (or should I say 'we'?) inherently know how long a foot or a yard is, how far a mile is, how fast 60mph is, how heavy a pound is, how much a gallon is... very few know (or care) how long a cm or meter is, how far a km is, etc.

That said, I personally prefer metric as well, and have no problem going through the "pain" necessary to switch over... but I'm not holding my breath expecting it to happen in my lifetime...

So if a Volvo mechanic over in Sweden needs a 14MM socket, does he place that 14MM socket on a 3/8" ratchet?

That's all I want to know. Are ratchet sizes the same as ours..........
1/4" 3/8" 1/2"

It may happen sooner than later, especially if the push comes from the auto industry. I have heard rumors that Ford wants to simplify be reducing the number of worldwide chasis used for their vehicles. Since the majority come from over seas then logically they would all be metric based.

But it is the nuts and bolts side of things that would have the hardest time adjusting. It's not like it would disappear either, just no longer made new.

I say go for it ... rip the bandaid.

I HATE having to buy two sets of wrenches, two sets of sockets... :mad:

One of those questions I've wondered about in the past, but had no way to answer.
Googling at it (sideways after looking up socket wrench in an online English/German dictionary), the answer appears to be, yes, he does.

Here is the German company Stahlwille's on-line catalog in Swedish.

And here is the page from that on-line catalog listing (all?) of their socket sets.

Basically yes at least here in Australia. The main sizes are 1/4 , 1/2 and 1" square drive.
3/8 and 3/4 are not commonly used and 1/2 square drive is the most popular by far.

Cheers , Pete.

Ah the age old debate continues.
One point Americans seem to miss is they are already using the metric (ten based system) every time they spend money. I am talking about Dollars and Cents !

Here we changed in the 1970's for weights and measures and for currency it was 14 February , 1966.

The currency was parallel for a while and gradually the Pounds , Shiilings and Pence English based system was changed over the simpler Dollars and Cents system.

The weights and measures was the same and most people changed quickly.
The next generation now in their late 20's and early 30's have no concept of pounds and ounces or of gallons and pints.
For them it is all metric measurement.

The TV weather was one of the first to be changed and then Government measures (land areas , weights of wheat and wool etc) and finally cars and private products.

That said economic interia had a part to play and there are still some items on the market which are "metricated"
Car tyres for instance , some ball bearings are still in the 1/4" and some items coming in from the US are built in non metric and sold here as a metric items.
You can still but a half inch socket driver but it is sold as "12.5 mill" and many housing related products are the same.
Sheet ply is still 4 x 8 ft sheets 3/4 in thick. Tiles are still 6x6" or 12x12" and some liquids are still converted. 375 ml is common (8 ounces).

By the way the litre is one kilogramme.

I think the comments by NachtRitter above sum it up fairly well.

Cheers , Pete.

You cannot do it completely because every machine tool, power tool, and the vast majority of anything that has been designed and manufactured by US companies in the past 80 years used inches.

Those of us that do design work for foreign manufacturers simply end up converting back and forth between either measurement system.

There's really no benefit or downside to either system, and I don't see either one becoming universally dominant any time soon. It could be advantageous for industry segments to agree to standardize though since that could reduce supply costs.

I end up using both every day at work. All I need to do is keep an online calculator handy.
http://www.worldwidemetric.com/metcal.htm

Don't get into old British sports cars, then, 'cause you'll have to get a third set, in Whitworth sizes.

And in the "go figure that one out" department, I had to put a new alternator belt on the '88 Toyota pickup yesterday, and of course they designed it so you have to take off the fan and A/C belts first. So I'm trying & trying to get a wrench on the A/C tensioner: 17mm's too big, 15mm too small, and I don't think I've ever seen a 16mm. So finally I get out the other set, and guess what? 5/8 fits perfectly.

Had an old British sportscar, what a pile of poop, won't do that again.

Didn't really matter what sized tool you used on them; ALL fasteners were rusted and broke off anyway. :rolleyes:

My other favorite thing is when there is a mixture of standard and metric on the same vehicle- drag ALL yer dam ned tools out there to work on it! :mad:

I'm sure Toyota would describe the bolt in question as having a 16mm head. 5/8" ~= 15.8750mm. The broach on a 5/8" wrench or socket is slightly larger than 5/8" to accommodate mangled bolts heads/nuts. Larger more complete sets include 16mm, though bolts with that size head are uncommon.

^ It doesn't matter HOW MANY D AMN SETS OF TOOLS YOU BUY, you will immediately encounter a fastener for which you do not have the tool. :mad:

This goes back to city-boy engineers that are only MAYBE book smart but have never so much as changed their own oil. If they ever tried to work on their junk they'd put serviceability for the end user higher up on the list than last place. That includes choosing readily available fasteners and fasteners that fit commonly owned tools.

trikkonceptz -

I agree. We seem to be living in Keynesian times, so might as well get it over with and make a bunch of metric widgets.

CarloSW2

They could just be using a 5/8" fastener. Foreign manufacturers can be mix and match in terms of whatever stuff is U.S. spec, eg AC, emissions systems on some late 70s/early 80s cars, and so on.

Amen, Frank. Amen!

Imperial units are present in international measures, not only in countries which once used them. Pretty much anywhere wheel hubs are in inches (e.g. 14x5.5), bike wheels and tires (e.g. 26 x 2.1 inches), but car tires are a mix (185/65R15 means 185mm wide tread on a 15in hub). The max pressure on a tire is given in psi, even though the placard in the door is in bars. When buying a garden faucet here I can choose between 1/2'' and 3/4'' diameters. According to Wikipedia, 1 oil barrel is 42 US gallons, 34.9723 UK gallons or 158.9873 liters.

Amen! My 1990 Chevy truck (how much more American can you get?) was about 1/2 metric. :confused:

Yeah johnny, i bought a set of 10-19mm sockets but they need a 3/8" connector, weird.

Here in England we are caught between metric and imperial, switching between them frequently.
When it's a hot day (becoming a rare thing) most people won't say it's 30c they use fahrenheit, bigger number sound hotter, same thing when it's freezing cold, we won't use fahrenheit and switch back to celsius because the smaller number sounds colder. Even weather reports do it.

Shops are meant to be completely metric, and i'd say most newer ones are, but some still use imperial or both, it's an EU regulation but not really enforced for smaller companies.

I tend to switch between them depending on the situation, when driving everything is in miles, since all the road signs are in miles that makes sense. for small liquid measures i prefer millilitres and litres, but bigger ones in UK Gallons. You can't buy anything in gallons anymore though, the only imperial liquid measurement still used on a large scale is the pint for alcohol, that's almost sacred here, 568ml of lager doesn't sound the same as i'll have a pint of your best.

When you tell someone how tall you are you use feet/inches, and when you say how much you weigh you use stones/lbs, i think stones are only used in england still, 1st=14lbs.
When i want to be precise and do calculation i use metric, base 10 measurements are easier to do, something like 16.6cm (166mm) + 25.4cm (254mm) is easier than 5" 9/16 + 10" 5/8.

I get the feeling i'm the last of that generation though, the only thing taught in school now is metric, most stuff is in metric and the small amount of things left in it aren't hard to convert in the head. I've learnt to convert between 90% metric/imp stuff because it was necessary, you could get waway with only knowing miles/mph and pints in england and have no real trouble anymore.

Even though Canada is officially on the metric system, I think the imperial system will remain at least in certain areas. Especially when there is folklore involved. I think we'll still be drinking pints for a while. And I'll still miss those 3 foot putts every now and then for the rest of my life.

we probably will when we give up our soverinty to a single world government...however opressive regimes usualy don't want their people to be educated so they won't teach you how to use it. :)

I honestly think that we should just teach it so that people can know how to do the conversions.

As a woodworker, I actually find English/American units more accurate - millimeter is the smallest size you can easily measure with Metric but with English units you can get down to 32ths and 64ths. The math is easier with Metric. I think that shipping will most likely continue to use nautical miles which doesn't really match Metric or English units. A nautical mile is approximately 2000 yards (2025), 1852 meters, or one minute of latitude.

Not sure what they do in your neck of the woods, but even in the Cali boonies where I'm at, they teach metric in middle school... and the teacher at my kid's school rails on how ridicurous the "stupid system" is compared to metric... :p Of course, other kids from "redneck families" are so "anti-the-rest-of-the-world" that I'm not sure how much difference it's going to make if this is taught or not... :rolleyes:

Back when I was in skool (right about when they went to them fancy multi-room skoolhouses) we were taught metric cuz the US conversion to it was "right around the corner". Yeah. :rolleyes: Hardly ever used it since, except when I need to fiddle around with conversions between units. :mad:

... Or when you had to find the right size metric wrench for your all 'murican car ... :p

I read somewhere that over 60% of the Ford Mustang is made outside the US. And 80% of one of the "imports" is made here in the US.

But back on subject, the Army uses metric more than English units. And Wikipedia says...

I don't know this for a fact, but every time I work on my car, I only use metric wrenches, so I suspect the automotive industry is already there! I know that all the technical papers are done in metric units.

Anyone know for sure if the "nuts and bolts" have not been converted?

I'm an engineer (but not a city-boy) and at my last job I was on a clean-sheet vehicle design that was decreed to be fully metric and was except the tires, wheels, and lug nuts. There's a prevailing tendency among older engineers to use metric-converted-english even in fresh design which I find irritating. At my present job everyone has resisted metric so strongly I had to go back to english design (which I hadn't used since my drafting class in high school). Major pain in the rear end.

IMHO an official conversion to metric can't come soon enough, but it will never happen. People will never stop using MPH or miles or gallons or (infuriatingly) cups, teaspoons, ounces, pounds. If America is to be alone among the developed world in holding out against the International Standard system we should be forced to measure height in rods, weight in stones, and speed in furlongs per fortnight. See how fast people clamor to use metric.

I just did a brake job on the wife's Odyssey which uses a 3/4" socket for the lug nuts, 17mm for the caliper bolts, and 1/2" (no, 12 and 13 mm would not fit) for the brake line bracket.

My Dodge Ram uses a 22mm socket for its lug nuts (IIRC). In fact, I don't recall ever using an english socket on that truck.

Personally, I think the metric system's just as confusing as the one we have. Everything's in 10s, so you have to depend on prefixes to tell what's what, and they all sound alike: kilo-, milli-, micro- whatever. Then when you do get something down, like centigrade degrees (which is at least a halfway sensible name, being that it has 100 degrees between freezing & boiling) they go change the name on you. "Celsius"? What the heck does that mean? Confusion reigns.

It takes getting used to, but still easier than random names and numbers.
Celsius was the guy who inverted the centigrade scale
Celsius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fahrenheit was the name of the guy who did the first temperature scale, 20 years before Celsius.

Not really, because at least the random names stay the same. A lot of them, like for instance foot or mile (from the Latin for "a thousand paces") have reasonable meanings, or come in handy sizes. Then there's the metric fashion for naming units after people. What could be less rational than that?

Then there's the whole tens thing, when for many purposes - packaging being a prime example - 12 is a lot handier. How would you package a 5-pack of beer, for instance?

Despite tool sizes and other conversions, we are very late to arrive on the SI scene. Even Medical Labs and research groups are using the Metric System to report values here in the U.S.

Problem is, we have a big economic problem (along with the rest of the world) to sort-out first. Then health care, education, law enforcement, etc. It may take some time to put it in the minds of the average American as an important issue.

I'll sign on the dotted-line to immediately convert, but the rest of the Country will certainly need to catch up. Take a look at the Canadian conversion controversy in the 1980's and amplify it.

RH77

I always see the same arguments against metric, that so many things are sized in imperial that it cant be changed. It wont matter, a 2x4 will exist long after imperial is gone and there is nothing wrong with that. It made no sence to change the drive sizes on the ratchets so the tool companies didnt. US industry has been ready to change to metric for a long time so thats a non argument as well.

I disagree with the comments that it will never happen, as the U.S. looses its grip as the economic superpower of the world and it becomes more evident that imperial appears to be the liability that it actually is then things will change.

If a unit is named after someone, then that someone most likely had something to do with that unit or that field in general. This can help kids on their science class tests. Whether a unit is named after someone or not, you just have to remember it. In the metric system you have 1 unit of mass (gram), for length you have 1 unit (meter). The unit of volume, liter, is defined as (0.1meter)^3. Everything else is just scaled from these base units. Tonnes are just 1 million grams. I admit that prefixes such as kilo-, centi-, milli-, etc. take getting used to if you don't know any Greek. They only change the order of magnitude.
According to Wikipedia in the US system, there are more names to remember.
(1) Weight - grains, ounces, pounds, tons. The latter can be long tons (2240lbs.) or short tons (2000lbs.). Ounces can be Troy (just over 31.1 grams) or avoirdupois (28.35 grams). In fact, since 1958 the avoirdupoisounce is defined using the metric system!!
(2) Length - inchs, feet, miles. Feet and miles come in the normal and survey variety. Miles can also be nautical.
(3) Volume - ounce, cup, pint, quart, gallon, beer barrel and oil barrel. Here you must be careful, since the same name represents something different depending on whether it is dry or liquid volume.

Now comes the fun part: try to quickly convert not from metric to US, but from one US measure to another. How many pints is 2.3 gallons? How many inches are in 1.7 miles? In the metric system the differences between unit names are only a few orders of magnitude. Metric is what it is because a kilogram is not 872 grams, or 54 centimeters being 1 meter and 1145 meters being a kilometer. When I say that US measures have "random" values, this is what I mean. It's so much easier to get lost in the US units. What do I mean when I say I need 8 ounces of suger? Halfpound, or halfpint? This contradicts your saying that the name stays the same.

This depends on what is being packaged. Eggs can be packed in dozens (12) or 18 in the US, here we have 6, 10, or 15, but you can buy 1 if you want. 12 is a number which just loves to be divided, that's why the Mesopotamians counted in base-12 or base-60, and thats why it's the base of our time system. The only 5-packs I've seen were 4+1free, but I would imagine a hexagonal 7-pack of beer or other cans or bottles might be quite efficient from the materials and transport point of view.

I believe basing the value of a unit of measurement off the length of a specific individual's body appendage is less rational (i.e. inch, foot).

The name of a unit is just a name but at least prominent scientists' names are spelled and abbreviated the same in every language. No system is immune, in fact every temperature measurement system is named after a person (since Celsius took over the "centigrade"). Many measures common to both systems are also named after people; Watt, Volt, Ampere. Seems like a canard.

I like to measure fuel consumption in hogs heads per furlong myself... :P

I'd prefer switching to the metric system. You can buy soda in liters, but not milk. I buy bike tires as 700C x 23 or 35. Food is usually sold by weight in ounces and pounds, but serving sizes can be either in grams or ounces. Enough with the mixed systems!

I was thinking about that today. Soda in liters, milk in gallons, but not vice versa. Unless you go to the movies and buy the ultra jumbo 64oz. cup of Coke ;)

I'm actually reading a book on this debate right now, "Meter Means Measure - the story of the metric system"
Apparently one of the first congressional lobbies was one formed by industry giants in the late 1800s to squash a metric bill proposed and originally supported by most of congress. After the lobby was formed against it, Alexander Graham Bell came to speak before Congress, explaining in context his experimentation (with flight, not the phone) that converting between complex measurements of thrust, mass, and volume he found it easier to first convert measurements to metric and then to use metric measurements throughout the rest of his design and problem solving. In addition, he taught the laymen at his shop with no prior knowledge of metric what to do and they picked up on things quite handily, and liked it.
I think he should have made the, "It's more patriotic to stick with the British system!!!" argument - my favorite.
P.S. Although I am in favor of adopting SI units, I will never adopt British spellings - Favourite, Tyres, Neighbour. I can't deal with them ;)

I actually do know that (got degrees in physics & computer engineering, even :-), but it still makes no sense at all. In either system, you still have to do the rote memorization to know what all the names mean. (Of course it does make sense if you dump the names, and stick with the four fundamental quantities to do dimensional analysis.) The British units often do make more sense - a foot's about the length of the average man's foot (OK, it's sexist :-)), an inch the length of the first joint of a thumb, a mile's a handy thousand steps, a cup or a pint a handy size for a drink, etc. Go to metric, and the basic units aren't nearly as useful for everyday things. What can you relate a meter or a gram to, in the everyday world? Liters are too big for most of us to drink, a horsepower's easier to get a feel for than a kilowatt...

The American Auto industry has been metric for nearly two decades. A few old pieces of hardware may have squeaked through due to lack of redesign. American military standards seemed to set the rules for socket drives during the cold war. Prior to that, some drive sizes were different, 9/32 drive instead of 3/8 and one other but the specific escapes me. It's not hard to use both and niether is should be confusing for someone appliing them regularly.