Will America give up the Inch?

[Roadbridge]

Taking up from friartucks thread on "Who inveted metric?"

I'd like to ask the question.Will America(i.e U.S.A) ever give up the imperial system and convert to metric.

Has it ever being considered or will pigs fly first?

 

[PSE]

Considered, yes. Likely will be still under consideration after for another 30 or 40 years. Perhaps the imperial system provides better tax revenue making metric less attractive.

Regards,

 

[aspearin1]

It is amazing, but so many here in the US find the metric system confusing. About 10 years ago, the state of CT was supposed to switch entirely to metric, but it fell through. Through high school and college, I got comfortable with metric in chemistry, physics and biology. Once I started engineering, they threw English units back at me. Now at work, I see this crazy mix of units, like grams per gallon to express concentration, or liters per square inch for flux. It's blasphemy. I've learned that if I'm talking to a machinist or making a print, I use English units. If I'm talking to a scientist, I use metric. If I'm talking to an engineer... well that's where the mixing of units occurs.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[JAE]

The US Feds mandated a conversion to metric (or SI or whatever) some years ago and set a deadline. All the State DOT's (Dept. of Transportation) scrambled and mandated it for all their highway and bridge projects. Now, though, most states have backed off and abandoned the conversion.

Inches and pounds of the world unite!!! we are being persecuted!! (joke)

Will it someday be mandated again? Will the US convert? don't know and don't care - I'll be long gone.

 

[vonbad]

Answer to the question is yes, over a very long time as PSE mentioned.

For myself (and I believe many others) went through college using the metric system. Then when we hit the job market we were 'forced' back into the imperial units, because that's what was being used.

Many of the more experienced engineers have been working with imperial units for so long that's what they know and are reluctant to change.

If I have a choice at all, I use metric. On occasion I push suppliers to do the same.

 

[JAE]

by the way - aspearin1 - regarding Bruce Lee's statement (I loved Lee in the Green Hornet)....

will Bruce Lee's statement change as well? or how about the logic that supports his statement - logic doesn't change does it? (sorry...I'm just being flippant this morning)

 

[IRstuff]

It's still mandated by law; and eventually, we'll probably switch completely over.

However, it's really quite irrelevant for all the calculations I do in Mathcad. You can quite easily mix:
furlongs/fortnight+m/s+mph and cast the result in whatever units you choose.

Additionally, there are a number of other math packages and unit conversion programs that make the conversions either completely seamless or sufficiently painless to make the issue of units moot.

TTFN

 

[Heckler]

If I'm talking to an engineer... well that's where the mixing of units occurs.

If this is truely happening it's a shame to the profession. Not only are engineers getting a bad rap for their use of grammar but now mixing units.

I prefer the metric system because then I do not have to deal with Force, weight, and mass conversion.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/p/po/pound.htm

Heckler

 

[aspearin1]

It's shameful, I know... but true, and strangely comfortable in the industry.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[Maui]

It has been considered and even attempted as mentioned above by some state DOT's. Road signs that were posted in metric units were shot full of bullet holes until they were taken down and replaced with the old english unit signs. If you look at the speedometers in almost every car sold in the US, they list both metric and english units. So some attempts are still being made to ease the population into accepting the SI system. I am comfortable using either sets of units because in school I was taught to work with both. But I am confident that the conversion will not take place in the US in my lifetime. People are slow to change unless greatly motivated to do so. And I see no motivation for the general public in the US to switch to the metric system.

Maui

 

[VirtualEngineer]

I think the reason the US hasn't converted to metric, is similar to the reason Structural Engineers haven't converted to LRFD. (I know some engineers have switched so please chill out, the majority of us haven't.)

There is no cost benefit to change. In fact changing over will cost a considerable amount. (It takes extra time to perform calculations with LRFD and the final design generally takes more steel.)

Contrary to what the advocates of the metric system claim, there are time-tested factors, which support the use of the imperial system of measurement. See some arguments presented at this web site.

http://ourcivilisation.com/weight/

Likewise ASD has been around for years and the building industry and building codes have adopted many standards based upon service loads. Take for example the uniform live load assumed for floor loads. It is quite uncommon for a floor to be fully loaded to the design live load, however, with LRFD that unusual condition is treated to a higher factor of safety, resulting in a larger member to carry the same load.

There is no real need to enforce a switch to metric. I have done many jobs in metric and even more in imperial. When the construction workers need to build (foundations) to metric sizes, they just go buy a metric tape and get the job done.

Regarding unit conversions, IRstuff states, "it's really quite irrelevant for all the calculations I do in Mathcad." With the software available, unit conversions are the least of problems.

After using both metric and imperial, I find myself agreeing with the web page linked above, especially the part that says:

"The problem with metric is that every unit is based on the number ten. In weight, for example, there are 10 mg in 1 cg, 10 cg in 1 dg, 10 dg in 1 g, 10g in 1 Dg, 10Dg in 1hg, 10 hg in 1 kg, 10 kg in 1 Mg, and so on. Although metric's decimal structure is much acclaimed by supporters of conversion, the rigidity of constant multiplications of ten frequently means that metric measures overshoot desirable or useful proportions."

So the real question is "Why change away from a time tested system to a system that is less convenient and costs more?"

Regards to all,
JPJ

 

[UKpete]

VirtualE - I can't your link to the words of my fellow countryman (Keele Univ. UK) go without comment!

It is true that there are many examples when imperial units (for some reason we don't call them english units over here) seem to suit better than metric, e.g. the size of a house-brick. But there are also occasions when the opposite is true - engineering drawings often suit mm rather than inches. Also to imply that the switch to metric led to the relative decline of the British economy is just nonsense, I think there were other issues! The author is associating the change to metric here to the rise in power of the European Union, the latter being a hotly contested issue in the UK with plenty of anti-European feelings about, and this is clouding the authors judgement.

It is not true that people use mg,cg,dg,g,Dg,hg,kg,Mg etc. to describe weights - it is normal to increment the units every 1000 rather than every 10. Common metric weights are gram, kilogram and tonne (metric ton of 1000kg).

That's got that off my chest.

 

[swall]

Actually, much of the conversion has taken place. Just look at the U.S. auto industry. Any U.S. company that operates in the world market has converted or needs to fairly soon. That leaves the road signs, gas pumps and all of the other stuff used by citizens/consumers. Probably not worth the effort to convert. Only metric consumer product that comes to mind is the two liter pop bottle.

 

[Heckler]

So what would be the unit eq. to a pint of Newcastle at Fox & goose? Litre or 1/2 Litre

 

[BJC]

The army gave us rifles that used 5.56x45 MM cartridges.
You cannot work on a late model car without a set of metric tools.
Not many track meets have 100 yard dashes anymore it's all 100 meter.
We'll get there, we just slow. Some day will be going 20 klicks to grandmas house.

 

[DrillerNic]

VirtualE- the link you posted was one of the tin foil hat brigades anti EU rants (Britain's decline in the 1960's linked to metrication for example: Britain's decline started during the second world war!), and musch of the points are preeet stupid.

As for what a pint will be called? Well you go to most coutrnies in Europe and you don't buy beer in volumes: in POrtugal you ask for an "Impreal" if you want small one and a "Caneca" if you want a large one; the word "Pint" would survive as a glass of beer, but it would be defined as 556ml.

A lot of the problem is what people are used to: in the oil industry I use a dog's breakfast of bizzare units (sacks per gallon anyone? Or Acre-feet?); I know that a 8000bbl/ day well is pretty good, but if someone tells me tha the pressure is 17 MPa I don't instantly know if that is a lot or not, and that could be dangerous!

 

[epoisses]

depends on what the future majority of the world (china and india) use...

 

[haggis]

Heckler,

Next time you go to the Fox and Goose ask for 0.568 litres of Newcastle. Thats if you are in the UK or Canada. In the US, ask for 0.437 liters. This could be a solution to over indulgence as after a few it would be very difficult to ask for. Even more horrifying is the thought of asking for 3.69 millilitres of my favourite single malt. No thanks, I'll stick to asking for my wee dram.

Haggis

 

[imagitec]

More from VirtualEngineer's link:

Cans of soft drink provide another example of metric inefficiency. Drink cans cannot be produced in metric units because there are no metric measures available that reflect normal drinking quantities. The litre is much too big and the centilitre is much too small. Instead, the canning industry has had to divide the litre by about a third and produce a non-standard metric measure of "330 millilitres" in order to produce a suitable quantity.

That's just idiotic. So, is "4 inches" a nonstandard imperial measurement?

Rob Campbell, PE
Finite Monkeys -

http://www.livejournal.com/users/robcampbell

 

[VirtualEngineer]

I maintain that the time-tested division of units found in the imperial system of measurement is more user friendly than the metric system.

Admittedly, adding a column of figures involving feet, inches and fractions was at one time a laborious and tedious process. These days however, it presents no problem to someone with a calculator to make necessary conversions.

Here are some more links to web sites speaking about the benefits of imperial units.

http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Metrication/trouble_with_the_metric_system.htm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/dunaway2.html

Consider a kilogram, unit of mass right? Yet it is still regularly used as a unit of force. What is a metric ton except 1000 Kg? Rarely do you see KN used, even on european drawings, if you do the numbers get out of sight very quickly. They are just not friendly.

So the real question still remains "Why change away from a time tested system to a system that is less convenient and costs more?"

Regards,
JPJ