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Should the USA adopt the International System of Units (SI)?

Should the USA adopt the International System of Units (SI)?


  • Total voters
    63
the Brits still use miles don't they?

Its been a couple of years, but I seem to remember thinking it quaint that they were so old fashioned ....

They use metric measurements on other things eg - nobody buys a pound of butter (instead they buy a more generous 500g), and I seem to remember buying petrol in litres

If you are really attached to miles, there's no reason to give them up :)

I was being facetious. I really don't care one way or the other. ;)
 
Actually we still use feet for height for some reason.

no we don't. Officially we use metric.

But .... I think of myself as 5'6" and get confused when I have to think about height in metric .... whereas a lot of younger people seem to be bilingual on this.
 
m/d/y is the stupidest way to do it and makes absolutely no sense. And ive been to countries where the use d/m/y and no one ever says twenty second of july. The would say twenty two july. Another problem with m/d/y is that suppose you want to say july 13th. You would right do 07/13 right? Well is that july 13th or july 2013. If you did d/m/y it would be 13/7 and it would make sense to someone reading it. You are right about y/m/d but only a few countries use it. The whole world uses d/m/y and i dont know why some americans think we are special and not conform to the rest of the world.

In the US when someone writes 07/22 or 1/20 or 12/13 then it is known that they are talking about the month/day. No one goes around asking what month and year is it? They more often ask what month/day is it?
 
Hey, I was just in Franklin Park 30 minutes ago! My internship site is there. Freaky, considering that you're half a world away and it was just a random picture presumably grabbed on a google search. :lol:

Anyway, using that one can, we could figure out conversions for all three different systems of volume measurement. And we can make ourselves aware of the difference so that we could think in three different units of measurement.

Franklin Park fuel can ... the Rosetta Stone of measurement systems :)
 
Howdy,

I was thinking, wouldn't it be better if the USA finally adopted the International System of Units? ;)

Because...



So, what do you think?

Changing a whole measuring system just because the majority of the worlds countries are doing it is about as smart as jumping off the Grand Canyon Cliff without a parachute because someone else did it. Both systems are valid to use and just as accurate as the other.
 
Changing a whole measuring system just because the majority of the worlds countries are doing it is about as smart as jumping off the Grand Canyon Cliff without a parachute because someone else did it. Both systems are valid to use and just as accurate as the other.

Well, all but 3 countries have adopted it.
It would be good to have one global system of units and leave the confusion behind. :peace
 
I think the world should adapt to the US.

Well... that's not going to happen. The scientific community is using metric. The commonfolk should too. If the smart people in labs use it, lets follow their example.
 
I think you two missed the point of my post.

As for the Mars Orbiter...crap happens.

there are advantages to each system. For instance in aviation altitude is usually in feet, this is because due to a unique coincidence 1 inch of mercury = 1000' altitude change (well thereabouts when at lower altitudes) Also for long distance (terrestrial) navigation a nautical mile has its advantages over a KM or regular mile.
for most calculations metric works better. for most every day usage as in distances, weights, volumes it makes little difference but having more than one system makes about as much sense as having several different systems for the calendar. The judeo Christian calendar with this being the year 2013 is pretty much universal now but image if every country kept its own system it would promote confusion at no benefit to anyone
 
there are advantages to each system. For instance in aviation altitude is usually in feet, this is because due to a unique coincidence 1 inch of mercury = 1000' altitude change (well thereabouts when at lower altitudes) Also for long distance (terrestrial) navigation a nautical mile has its advantages over a KM or regular mile.
for most calculations metric works better. for most every day usage as in distances, weights, volumes it makes little difference but having more than one system makes about as much sense as having several different systems for the calendar. The judeo Christian calendar with this being the year 2013 is pretty much universal now but image if every country kept its own system it would promote confusion at no benefit to anyone

Of course there are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. Thats the way it is with anything and everything.

As for the calander thing...did you know that even our calenders are used differently by different cultures? In some cultures a persons birthday starts on the day they were concieved, in others it starts on the day you come out of the woman.

My whole point really is that you use what works best FOR YOU and what YOU are doing. Not what works best for every one else.
 
I think US should use metric system in science, because I do remember how silly it was to convert all the figures into metric system and then back to the imperial system.

But for personal use, let people use what they want. If people want to switch, then let them do so by free will.
 
I guarantee all the Americans that voted "yes" are the flaming liberals who, in general, love nothing more than to apologize for America.

Some people can't handle being awesome, they feel the need to apologize and capitulate as a result. And those people are ALWAYS libs. Meh.
 
i use the metric system at work every day, as the imperial system doesn't work as well in science.

however, when i leave work, i'm emotionally attached to imperial measurements because i'm programmed to be. if my morning weight was in kg, the speedometer read kmh, etc, it would really annoy me for a while.

i don't see it happening any time soon due to inertia. should it happen? probably. do i want it to? for logical reasons, i guess, but i definitely won't be annoyed if it isn't changed.
 
No; women, in America, are conditioned to think in terms of inches. I do not want to tell some babe I'm sporting 177.8mm and have her stare back at me like a deer in headlights.
 
That has always been the big hurdle for switching to metric.

Most things have to fit together with something else so they have to change over at near the same time or things go south. For example, in housing the length of studs would have to change to accommodate the change from 4x8' sheets of plywood and sheet-rock to 1200x1800 mm. Coming up 3/4" different just wouldn't work or would cost a lot of money cutting off the excess 3/4" (~19 mm) of material, whichever side the excess is. There are also engineering problems where old designs won't easily convert. For machine designs some bolts have to fit within 1/8" (~3 mm) or less of tolerance. A 1" long bolt is almost 5 mm shorter than a 30 cm bolt and a little over 5 mm longer. Anything with these issues would not only require retooling but redesigning as well.

You think liberals (who comprise of the unemployed, students, and ivory tower academics) are EVER going to understand this? Of course not, they've never spent a day at an actual business in their entire lives!

Besides, they're too busy kissing French ass and apologizing for our success in the world.
 
You think liberals (who comprise of the unemployed, students, and ivory tower academics) are EVER going to understand this? Of course not, they've never spent a day at an actual business in their entire lives!

Besides, they're too busy kissing French ass and apologizing for our success in the world.

No kidding!!! Those pinheaded business-inept Liberals, like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, are so ignorant of how business and the economy actually work that what they really need to do is log onto this site and get schooled by Peter Grimm!!!

+1 Petey!!!
 
Of course there are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. Thats the way it is with anything and everything.

As for the calander thing...did you know that even our calenders are used differently by different cultures? In some cultures a persons birthday starts on the day they were concieved, in others it starts on the day you come out of the woman.

My whole point really is that you use what works best FOR YOU and what YOU are doing. Not what works best for every one else.

How is that relevant to your remark that switching to the metric system because the rest of the world is doing it is the same as jumping off a cliff cause someone else does? Switching to metric is nothing like jumping off a cliff in general it just simplifies life. Having everyone on the same system works best for everyone.
 
The Imperial system is abhorrent and ridiculous. It needs to go immediately.

SI is rational and makes sense. Go ask a random person on the street how many feet are in a mile, 95% will not be able to tell you. Ask someone from any other country how many meters are in a kilometer. The difference is redonkulous.

Besides, most types of engineers and scientists already have switched to SI.

Because we so often need to know how many feet are in a mile....... :roll: I do know that answer by the way ;)
 
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