Hobo Jungle

[webenda]

Tomorrow, 20 May, 2014, is World Metrology Day

World Metrology Day celebrates the signing of the Treaty of the Meter on May 20, 1875. By signing the treaty, representatives from 17nations, including the United States, recognized the importance of worldwide uniformity of measurements and established a collaborative global framework for the advancement of measurement science.

http://www.worldmetrologyday.org/
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd-051914.cfm

[rogruth]

Wayne,

In your opinion,why have we,the U.S.A.,been so slow to adopt the metric system?
One argument I have heard,and IMHO does not compute,is that it would change a lot
of athletic stuff. The treaty mentioned above was
made before most athletic events that would need some changes existed.
I have never understood this.My wife would need a few new measuring implements
for cooking and sewing and I would need a different tape measure but what is so
hard about this?

[E7]

Wayne,

In your opinion,why have we,the U.S.A.,been so slow to adopt the metric system?

Roger,

Not trying to speak for Wayne, who will have way better stuff than I can provide, but a lot of it is here via stealth version, as in a lot of fasteners (nuts and bolts etc.), particularly automotive are metric. Mitch could probably comment on that point!

Rich

[webenda]

Wayne,

In your opinion,why have we,the U.S.A.,been so slow to adopt the metric system?

OK, my opinion… we are metric, you just haven't noticed yet.

I am metric. My scale says I weigh 108.8 kg and my height is 1816 millimeters. Look under your scale. If you have a little switch that says lbs<->kg you can be metric now, just flip it.

My rulers and yard sticks all have metric measure on one side.

Sports has no need to change their units of measurement unless they are competing in World Class events. The Olympic athletes, even those from the USA, run metric distances, like 400 meters instead of the quarter mile.

There is no need to change cooking or sewing measures, the units are not used in legal trade. Even if the wife decided to sell pies, for instance, they would not be sold by the inch or ounce, but by the pie or slice. USA and UK recipes are still in imperial measures. The French, on the other hand, are fully metricised. Reference: http://cuisine.journaldesfemmes.com/rec ... u-de-sable
Oh oui! Tout semble si bon. I missed out on the metric measuring cups in 1975-1980. Maybe I can find one at the Good Will store and try some of those French recipes.

No state is required to go metric, but the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 encourages it. Many states have dual speed limit signs. Arizona started replacing speed limit signs with metric signs, but people thought 105 km/h meant 105 mph. I don't know who was more stupid, the legislators who voted to go hard over metric or the drivers who were complaining the cars of the era were governor limited to 85 mph.

The Arizona politicians may not be smart enough to lead us gradually into the metric system, but the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures (AZDWM) has been ready for metric since 1912. In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures. Arizona did not get theirs until 1912 because we were not a state in 1866. I have been to the AZDWM and observed the original metric standards… we still have them. The AZDWM is accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program for metric measurements. < http://ts.nist.gov/Standards/scopes/2003810.pdf >

My F-150 has a 3.7 liter engine. When I change the oil I put 5.7 liters of oil back in. I buy 4.7 liter and 1 liter containers of oil at the parts house. The metric liquid measures just fit the engine specification for oil capacity. The tires are a little schizophrenic, being P235/75R17. "235" is a metric size of 235 millimeters across the widest point of the sidewalls. "17" is an rim-inch size of 17 inches. I don't know what is wrong with wheel manufacturers. Are they the last imperial measure holdouts? If they ever get with the program, my tire size will change to P235/75R432. At least the studs and lug nuts that hold the schizophrenic wheels on the axles are metric size M14 x 2.0, torqued to 200 Newton-meters.

If you check your packages from the super market, you will see metric measures are sneaking into everything. I don't think anyone has a problem buying a 1 or 2 liter bottle of soda. Most food packages are labeled in both metric and imperial measures. Some dental floss is marked in metric measure only.

All government contracts are required to specify units will be metric. Reference: http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/metric-policy.cfm

I think we are metric. Maybe no one noticed.


P.S. Good one Rich, metric by stealth.

[Mitch]

The way I look at it, some 240 years ago we broke away from all that crap to be our own nation, and I have no time for the metric system. Back in the '70s, the automotive manufacturers started with bolts that had metric heads, (like 15mm) but the threads were standard ASE 3/8"! WTF was that all about? Then they changed to Liters for the engines. I guess it was a better sell to say that the Chevy 350 V8 was a 5.7L engine, rather than say it was a 348 cubic inch engine. All my years drivin' truck in Canada, (who changed to the metric system overnight), I'd listen to the radio and the weatherman would say "high of 27 tomorrow", and I'd think, Damn!! that's cold. (Not really; getting close to 60 degrees. My measuring tapes that I use for woodworking have both scales, but if I was buildin' a new cabinet using metric, it would end up a crooked MFer! I'm just glad my Snap-On torque wrenches have both lbs.ft and newton meter scales.

Oh, but it's so much easier, people say! Everything's in multiples of 10. BS!!!!

[rogruth]

Thanks all.

I understand and agree.However,I still do not understand the resistance ro metric.
I don't "talk" in metric and the only thing that would hold me back if I needed to
is age [my age].

[Rufus T. Firefly]

May 20 is . . . . Eliza Doolittle Day


As for metric, it's been a way of life for many decades.......chemistry and research is metric.....

[J. S. Bach]

May 20 is . . . . Eliza Doolittle Day

"Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! "

My very first LP is/was (I still have it) My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. Years later I picked up the 1964 movie soundtrack version with Audry Hepburn; it flat sucks compared to the original! Hepburn can not hold a candle to Andrews, at least in the role of Eliza Doolittle.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.......the 1964 movie soundtrack version with Audry Hepburn.......

Then again there is this Eliza Doolittle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxqtnWwLxYI

[webenda]

I still do not understand the resistance to metric.

The change to metric is not free. Most people/businesses using tools have had to double the number of tools in their inventory. Cost might be the biggest reason for resistance.

[rogruth]

Dave,

I agree.

Wayne,

I understand but it seems that opposition goes back over 100 years.

Was this just being stubborn?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

On a serious note, May is Pet Cancer Awareness month.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

May 21 is . . . . National Memo Day and National Waitresses/Waiters Day

[webenda]

Wayne,

I understand but it seems that opposition goes back over 100 years.

Was this just being stubborn?

I think cautious, not stubborn.

Perhaps some history will help explain.

Simon Stevin (1548 – 1620) was a Flemish mathematician and military engineer. He wrote a 35-page booklet called "De Thiende" ('the art of tenths'), first published in Dutch in 1585 and translated into French under the name, "Disme."

Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson served as ambassadors to France. They were also both active in the scientific community of France during their ambassadorial service. Franklin served from 1776 to 1784, during which time he promoted the idea of a decimal currency. In 1795, the French Franc was converted to decimal form and remained the national currency until the introduction of the euro in 1999.

Thomas Jefferson served from 1784 to 1789. While in France, Thomas Jefferson found and read Stevin's booklet. After reading "Disme," Jefferson was active in promoting decimal measurements to the French Royal court and to the scientific 'philosophies.' In 1795, the metric system became the legal system of weights and measures in France.

In the mean time, the first President of the United States, George Washington, in his first address to the Congress on January 8, 1790, requested, "Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to." The congress commissioned Thomas Jefferson to study the matter and make a recommendation. Jefferson, after pretending to study the matter for a few days, recommended the metric system for the United States of America. The congress responded with, "The French are still working on the metric system; we will wait and see how it turns out for them." With that the Congress voted for the English Imperial Measurement System because it was already tested and working in England.

In 1812, Napoleon abolished the Metric System in France, stating, "When I asked the Weatherman of the Revolution what the temperature was going to be tomorrow, I was told 'The high will be 27 tomorrow.' I thought, Damn!! that's cold, I better get my Russian fur coat ready to wear. So there I was, wearing my Russian fur coat at an outdoor event I was to speak at, and the temperature turned out to be 81 degrees. After I had the Weatherman guillotined, my science advisor explained, 'By the Metric Law of 1795, the Weatherman was required to give the temperature in degrees Celsius--27 degrees Celsius is 81 degrees Fahrenheit.' So starting today, the Metric System is abolished, we return to our old measurements and there is an opening for, Weatherman of the Revolution."

The US Congress said, "See, we knew it wouldn't work! We were so smart to go with a proven system"

Even though the metric system was reinstated as the compulsory system in France in 1840, many USAuns still think it won't work.

Here are some reasons given:
1) It is French, of course it won't work.
2) Scientists use it, no normal person could understand it.
3) Using the metric system in the US would incur a tremendous cost of changeover.
4) Consider the IC. The leads are spaced 0.1 inch apart. Do you change this to 2.54 mm, or round it off to 2 mm ?
5) Every sheet of paper would change from 8.5" x 11" to the SI equivalent of 210 x 297 mm (8.27" by 11.69")
6) Going metric in shops, especially in supermarkets, gives an opportunity for traders to increase prices covertly. Who would know if $6.60/kg for hambuger meat is equivalent to the old $2.99/lb? $6.60 under the metric system certainly sounds like a rip off when we used to pay only $2.99. Going metric would cause a congressional investigation of the sudden change in hamburger prices.
7) The proliferation of units and difficulty in remembering the ratios between them. (See the meat price quandary above.)

So, USAuns go on with the old system of things for a variety of reasons, while industry is stealthily changing us over to the metric system (dual units on produce labels, 99.99% metric automobiles. etc., etc.)

By the way, it is not the metric system any longer, but the International System of Units (abbreviated SI from French: Le Système international d'unités.) The SI is the world's most widely used system of measurement, used in both everyday commerce and science. The only countries that do not exclusively use the metric system are the US, Liberia, and Myanmar (Burma).

Edit 1, to give credit to Mitch for inspiring the Napoleon story.
Edit 2, Thank you Mitch, your metric temperature story was funny.

[rogruth]

Wayne,

My understanding is less cloudy now.Thank you.