Should the US adopt the Metric System?

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

voyager1 said:

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

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They should have 40 year ago

Sababa said:

They should have 40 year ago

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I don't really care to verify.. but... it seems I recall that it was done about then.... It didn't survive... maybe a frog resentment... ( that's a funny )

Enjoy life

Thom Paine

Yes. I am a moderator of a subreddit dedicated to this : Metric: Setting the Standard of Measurement

voyager1 said:

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

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Metrics, Nasa, Mars lander.... hmmmm .... Not following you ????

Coffee awareness works

Enjoy life

Thom Paine

In a heartbeat (approx. 1.1 seconds)

Back in the day we used metric for long distances and inch/feet for smaller measurements. The objective was some many Klicks away, the weapon's max eff range was in meters but you dug the M60 tripod in 8" and measured the hole you dug for your fighting position in feet.

Didn't confuse us to use the blend, now just how did a pack of Rocket Scientists lose the Mars thing???

notquiteright said:

Back in the day we used metric for long distances and inch/feet for smaller measurements. The objective was some many Klicks away, the weapon's max eff range was in meters but you dug the M60 tripod in 8" and measured the hole you dug for your fighting position in feet.

Didn't confuse us to use the blend, now just how did a pack of Rocket Scientists lose the Mars thing???

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Nov. 10, 1999: Metric Math Mistake Muffed Mars Meteorology Mission | This Day in Tech | WIRED

I was wrong it was an orbiter not lander... my bad.

voyager1 said:

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

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Since I tend to like acccuracy, just to make clear: the mars rover lost was not lost because NASA could not figure out metrics. It was lost because during the process of making the rover, one contractor thought the unit measurements where in English units, resulting in a mismatch.

Edit: to quote from the source you linked in the post while I typed mine:

A NASA review board found that the problem was in the software controlling the orbiter’s thrusters. The software calculated the force the thrusters needed to exert in pounds of force. A separate piece of software took in the data assuming it was in the metric unit: newtons.

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That is not a failure to understand metrics.

Going metric sounds easy until you consider all the machinery that would need to be retooled in such a way as to calibrate in metric. The costs would be absolutely staggering. The housing collapse of a few years ago would look like a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Gardener said:

Going metric sounds easy until you consider all the machinery that would need to be retooled in such a way as to calibrate in metric. The costs would be absolutely staggering. The housing collapse of a few years ago would look like a drop in the bucket in comparison.

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How about if all newly built machinery is done in metric and let the old stuff just die out over time?

Gaius46 said:

How about if all newly built machinery is done in metric and let the old stuff just die out over time?

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So,how would this be accomplished,say, for lumber mills or metal hardware manufacturers?

I'd suggest a walk through your local Home Depot or Lowes to get an idea of all that would have to be changed.

Of course America should.

It's a far simpler and more logical system to use and remember.

The only reason she doesn't is stubbornness, IMO.

Gardener said:

Going metric sounds easy until you consider all the machinery that would need to be retooled in such a way as to calibrate in metric. The costs would be absolutely staggering. The housing collapse of a few years ago would look like a drop in the bucket in comparison.

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That is ridiculous. You wouldn't change everything overnight, you would gradually phase in the metric system. You don't even need to retool, just re-label your 5/8 wrench to 15.875mm.

Its not like using imperial units is the end of the world, but its lack of efficiency does have costs in education and engineering.

rathi said:

That is ridiculous. You wouldn't change everything overnight, you would gradually phase in the metric system. You don't even need to retool, just re-label your 5/8 wrench to 15.875mm.

Its not like using imperial units is the end of the world, but its lack of efficiency does have costs in education and engineering.

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NASA has computed that it would cost 370 million dollars to convert to metric. That is just NASA.

What a naive idea it is to think it would be effortless or inexpensive for the entire United States to follow suit.

Gardener said:

So,how would this be accomplished,say, for lumber mills or metal hardware manufacturers?

I'd suggest a walk through your local Home Depot or Lowes to get an idea of all that would have to be changed.

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most things at Home Depot have metric options when it comes to tools. As for big machines, more and more are run by computer and they use metric a lot. This is a bad argument because transitions always happen.

voyager1 said:

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

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They already have in a way. Almost every nut and bolt on American made cars are smetirc. Some mechanics own two sets of sockets for those emergencies of working on cars and trucks with both SAE & metrick. My odometer has MPH and KPH, we can't escape it. Which would you rather pay $3.89 for, a litre, or a gallon?

Well Canada is really still in transition, since we import quite a lot form the U.S. in terms of building supplies but anything made here is in metric. So switch over so we can finish. While you are at it, ditch the Phillips head screw and adopt the Robertson.

Sababa said:

They should have 40 year ago

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Or 48 decayears.

voyager1 said:

Nov. 10, 1999: Metric Math Mistake Muffed Mars Meteorology Mission | This Day in Tech | WIRED

I was wrong it was an orbiter not lander... my bad.

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What Redress said-

I've seen this happen with sad frequency in the IT world, big projects are divided up between teams. Each team worked their part on more or less independently. There are supposed to be coordinating meeting between team leaders but often they are nerd turf wars rather than team building exercises. The quality control is usually the smallest team trying to review millions of lines of code. What happens is 'management by exception' if the program doesn't 'blow-up' (abort) then it is good to go. Functionality is tested, not accuracy.

This happens a lot in international coding. Europe does date as day/month/year (smart) and the USofA does month/day/year (derp). Throw in other differences like currency and how taxes are tracked- many a blown program. A major international corporation had trouble with their Argentinian office as the SA team pushed unusable data back to the states. The SA team claimed it was a 'legal requirement' to track the numbers this way so the USofA IT dept had to work a patch to fit the SA numbers in. (Later it was found out the SA team just didn't want to convert as many bean counters hate change)

Many programmers are lazy, some older programmers are used to limited data storage and truncate. A HUGE problem was the millennium crisis. Remember the 'panic' that everything controlled by computers would fail in one huge collapse of civilization? That was all about the concept of the two digit space for year thinking 00 would be 1900 and not 2000 and fail to function. (If you could spell IT you made money programming!)

For months programs aborted as it two digit year programs met 4 digit programs, but it was cha-ching overtime for programmers....

Gardener said:

NASA has computed that it would cost 370 million dollars to convert to metric. That is just NASA.

What a naive idea it is to think it would be effortless or inexpensive for the entire United States to follow suit.

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Costs can be minimized with a slow and gradual phase in process. You don't have to replace existing stuff on day one, simply set standards for newly created items to be metric. There are also significant cost savings, not only in avoiding failure like the 125 million dollar probes, but in the overhead of having to do conversions and double checking to avoid said disaster. I am aware that even done right it will have costs, but its one a time investment that provides nothing but benefits in the future. Remember the idea that we should try to actually make the next generations lives better?

Gardener said:

Going metric sounds easy until you consider all the machinery that would need to be retooled in such a way as to calibrate in metric. The costs would be absolutely staggering. The housing collapse of a few years ago would look like a drop in the bucket in comparison.

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Well ... no. The majority of large scale American manufacturing is already done in metric. Whether it's the auto industry, military/gov't contractors and even consumer goods. Already metricated in the later half of the 20th Century.

Those who would be affected most are small scale manufacturers, who would (in any metrication plan) be given 10+ years to retool.

i use the metric system in the lab every day. it definitely is easier and more effective, but i don't really see a formal transition to using it everywhere as a priority. it will probably happen more informally, with the metric system being used in areas that it wasn't before just because it works better. and if our car speedometers stay with MPH, no big deal. i actually prefer that one.

Gardener said:

So,how would this be accomplished,say, for lumber mills or metal hardware manufacturers?

I'd suggest a walk through your local Home Depot or Lowes to get an idea of all that would have to be changed.

Click to expand...

Carjosse said:

Well Canada is really still in transition, since we import quite a lot form the U.S. in terms of building supplies but anything made here is in metric. So switch over so we can finish. While you are at it, ditch the Phillips head screw and adopt the Robertson.

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Or actually Gardener, are you more familiar with construction? The construction, building materials, real estate, related industry are the metric laggards in the US. Almost every industry has moved toward metrication EXCEPT them. In fact they're the #1 culprits for keeping Canada only halfway metricated too. Canada imports a large portion of its building supplies from the US & thus they are forced to keep the Imperial units going.

So if you're basing your thoughts off of them ... yeah, they're definitely the exceptions here.

voyager1 said:

The rest of the world uses it. Medical professions use it. The sciences use it. NASA couldn't figure it out however and lost a Mars lander a decade ago though...

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Yes, but not because the rest of the world uses it, but why the rest of the world uses it: http://www.metric4us.com/why.html

We should be using a 28-day month, 13-month calendar too; and October should be 8th month, not the 10th.

And get rid of daylight savings.