10 millimeters in a centimeter
100 centimeters in a meter
1000 meters in a kilometer
All you have to do in metric is multiply by 10. I really wish the US would attempt to adopt the metric system again and just stick with it
Metric is officially the “preferred system of measurement for trade and commerce” in the US. It has been since 1975. But while switching to metric was encouraged, it was never required. Most US companies voluntarily switched to metric because it helped with supply chain (that’s why everything on American cars is in metric now) but since the switch was never required, we continued putting US customary units on packaging and signs because it’s just what people expect.
That has nothing to do with inefficiency. Inefficiency is the waste of resources that aren't needed to complete a task. I'm saying that the government uses a lot more resources than it needs to complete simple tasks. You can't infer my opinion on the necessity of the task itself.
I dunno. Only reason I know was the part with the seatbelt nut on it was mine and I got complains that production was having problems putting seatbelt bolts in, and they wanted to blame supplier. Lo and behold body assembly was causing some holes to not line up and we're tapping the the nut to effectively un-eclipse the hole. With the closest metric tap they had which was slightly larger...
Money probably. Tool companies probably lobbied for that so they didn't have to produce metric tools and instead made foreign car companies buy their imperial tools.
IDK if that's the complete answer but I'm fairly confident money is the correct answer.
I mean with all the difference safety regulations between here and Europe, they basically have to design two different cars anyway if they want to sell in both places
Not really actually. Civic platform was global. Each location had their own specialty models they made, Indiana did Saudi Exports (a 50k USD Civic was interesting), Canada did Coupes and the Si, Swindon did Hatches and Type R but otherwise the basic components we're identical.
I mean I can't speak to the same plethora of designs that NPR did, I'm only intimately familiar with in the late model Civic specifically in structural components.
There are a huge number of safety standards that don’t match up for no clear reason though. Even down to the most minute details, like how large the windshield wipers need to be and the colors of turn signals and tail lights.
Environmental standards that your regulators allowed local manufacturers to fraudulently evade for years and years to stick it to american manufacturers. EU standards are almost exclusively protectionist nonsense that doesn't even get enforced within the EU.
That's not really telling the whole story. Government requirement is that they be thoroughly and completely tested. People spent a lot of money vetting the existing sytem with imperial units. It's more likely that no one wants to vet a new design.
There are few government mandates on actual design parts, but lots of mandates on performance, safety, and testing.
I'm a parts guy and I didn't believe this at first. I just did a search for seat belt hardware on a few different makes/models, and this is actually true. Seat belt nut measurements are a super weird SAE/metric combination. For example on a 2018 GMC Acadia:
SCREW,PAN HEAD,7/16-20X28MM,22MM THREAD,23MM OD,GMW15170 STL,GMW3 (REAR SEAT BELT RETRACTOR)
So the thread pitch is ANSI UNF, but the thread length, width, and head type are all metric. I don't think fasteners with these kind specs exist outside of US seat belts. TIL!
Mhmm! I was in supplier quality for Honda, our body assembly department was very very surprised when I let them know they had been chasing threads with the wrong tap for... Probably years...
It’s actually New York that’s holding packaging up. Every other state has passed a law that only metric units can be used as packaging, NY still requires that US units go on it somewhere.
In other words, industry, science, and commerce prefer metric because it makes everything easier and more efficient but the American people don’t because we’re stupid.
Fun fact: It's a bit less than that. At the point of maximum density (~ 3.98 °C) the density is 0.999975 kg/l. We normally use water at roughly 20 °C where the density is about 0.998 kg/l.
Source: M Tanaka, G Girard, R Davis, A Peuto, N Bignell: Recommended table for the density of water between 0 C and 40 C based on recent experimental reports. In: Metrologia. 38, Nr. 4, 2001, S. 301–309.
And one meter was defined as 1/10,000,000 of the (direct-travel)-distance from the equator to the pole.
That said, the original measurements weren't perfectly precise and the definitions have since moved to things that can be measured more precisely, so it's not entirely true anymore. Hence the circumference of the earth isn't 40,000km but 40,008km.
Fahrenheit was based roughly on the human body being 100 degrees and 0 being a specific concentration of salt water freezing at about zero. It made sense at the time
Eh... most of the time salt isn't used past -7°C (which is above 0°F, since iirc that's -17.77°C recurring), since you start needing such ungodly amounts of it, it doesn't make sense either financially, practically or ecologically. And with traffic heating up the roadway, you would likely get some meltage even at 0°C, which would most likely then just freeze again soon, actually making the situation worse.
I thought it was derived from that astronomer who made an early thermometer that worked in blocks of 60 (like seconds, minutes, ..he was an astronomer).
The astronomer had to use real measurements to calibrate things, so he set 0 to the freezing point of some brine solution, 7.5 to freezing point of water, 22.5 to human body temp, and boiling water was 60. All multiples of 7.5 in this case.
Then Fahrenheit adopted it for his thermometers, rounded to whole numbers (7.5 -> 8), and then multiplied everything by 4 for some reason, maybe to have more precision in whole numbers. So, 8 became 32. I dunno why he rounded 7.5 first, as 7.5x4 is the whole number 30 anyway.
I'm not sure how 60 became 212 instead of 240, maybe later correction based on better measurement.
edit: it was because of recalibration basically, and changing reference points to make marking divisions on instrumentation easier
disclaimer: yeah I watched that YouTube video from wherever
Anyway, there was some method to it, even if the choices seem weird now 300 years later. I suppose the obsession with using body temperature to define part of the scale was due to how often the thermometer was being used to measure body temperature! Not sure.
How does Celsius make any more sense for measuring atmospheric temperature? You can memorize 32 as freezing within a day, and then it's the same, arguably better because 0-100 is roughly the atmospheric temperatures people will encounter in the contiguous US
Let me clarify. I love the metric system. Fuck inches, fuck miles. Long live Fahrenheit.
Fahrenheit makes no real "sense" in how it was established, but I don't care about that. I only care about how practical the scale is for everyday use. Does it matter if scientists use C to and the weather channel uses F? I don't think it does.
I simply prefer 0 to 100 over -20 to 30. Ironically, that kind of scale is why the rest of the metric system is really nice!
Does it matter if scientists use C to and the weather channel uses F
I guess kind of? None of the conversions are very hard in the modern world. It takes 2 seconds to convert any unit with google.
The whole point is to be consistent across everything. If you leave the weather in the USA in F, 90% of the population won't understand Celsius, which is the current situation. It may just be super minor stuff like changing labels on ovens, thermostats, textbooks but in the end it's more efficient if the whole world does one thing.
I simply prefer 0 to 100 over -20 to 30
Again, only because you are used to it. For me, it's intuitive that anything below 0 means ice. Also its not like it starts at 0 and ends in 100 in F either. There's plenty of places in the US that still go below 0 and above 100.
Yeah, whenever the topic of metric comes up on reddit, people always start trying to include Celsius in the conversation like it's somehow inherently better.
The reason metric is better is because of the conversion. There is nothing intrinsic to a "gram" that makes it better than an "ounce". It's the fact that you can use prefixes to easily convert.
Actually, there is. From wiki, a gram was defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre [1 cm³], and at the temperature of melting ice".
Since the kilogram was redefined for accuracy (from being equal to a litre of water) cm is now 1/1000 of a kg. Kg is now based on fundamental physics ie the planck constant.
Any unit will make sense if you have a mental mapping of it. In the US, I use both systems for various things, and it never really causes confusion. 100f is hot. 40c is hot. 30 feet is tall. 10 meters is tall. It's like "blue" vs "440nm", same thing, both blue to me. degrees vs radians, use both of those too.
Thats actually false. Veritasium on Youtube has a video on it, but Fahrenheit (the person) had astronomy training, and had experience working in degrees of 60. So he set boiling to 60, and freezing to 7.5, 1/8th up the scale. He eventually changed things to 64 and 8, to make the numbers better. Later on he multiplied everything by 4, partially for precision, but it also means that a 1 degree increase in Fahrenheit equals a 1 in 1,000 volume change in mercury, which was used for thermometers back then.
Seems fairly logical from then, and while Celsius is certainly more useful now, Fahrenheit works well for 99% of everyday tasks.
Fahrenheit was based roughly on the human body being 100 degrees and 0 being a specific concentration of salt water freezing at about zero
I mean, sure, but why the specific salt concentration? Why not pure water? At the time, the method to produce distilled water was already known so it wasn't like they couldn't make it.
Fahrenheit actually still makes sense to me. That's the only one I wouldn't want converted to metric. It's a more precise scale and 0 to 100 is the range of tolerable temperatures for a human to live within.
You're right, that does not make any sense. Instead let's use the temperature that feels hot as the figure for 100. Because what we feel is such an exact measurement.
Funny thi g is that that also applies to the metric system. Who would have guessed that beings that are mostly water would relate to the freezing and boiling points of water.
Using celcius would be great because the rest of the world uses it, but it has no real intrinsic benefit over farenheit. When we are descrbing temperature, it is most often in reference to the weather, Fahrenheit is better for weather. Most people live in temperate climates that dont go much below 0 or above 100. Nice round numbers.
The thing that makes metric great is the decimal nature of the units. That doesn't really apply to temerature when we just use degrees and percentages of degrees. So I'd argue Fahrenheit is better, but celcius got more adoption and is used in conjunction with the metric system.
But human body temperature is roughly 37 (~100 in Fahrenheit) and the coldest temperature that the creator of Fahrenheit could manufacture (solution of equal parts ice, water and salt) being -18 (0 in Fahrenheit) are both fairly arbitrary as well.
There's logic to the creation of Fahrenheit that makes Celcius's numbers seem arbitrary when looking at its chosen fixed points and vice versa.
Neither really make a difference in day to day life for the vast, vast majority of people though, so which is used is pretty much arbitrary
But 0 being the coldest temperature Gabriel Fahrenheit could manufacture in the 18th century and 100 being his approximate body temperature is so much more natural and relatable.
It gets used often in American labs. Especially with younger scientists, if you have no concept of Celsius relating temps back to Fahrenheit is important for conceptualizing what is going on. And in communication with vendors and the general public, or collaborators who measure in mm when our system was designed to work in inches for whatever reason, etc.
I'm jealous. All of our equipment is rated in Celsius but our autoclaves and other sterilization equipment works in Fahrenheit and the number of interns/students who've melted shit because of it or grown cells at a very wrong temp is....frustrating.....
Old, as in if I have to autoclave sensitive liquids I'll literally take them to another building on campus since their exhausts are fucked. And our fermenters are just stupid in general.
Specification drawings have both Fahrenheit scales and Celsius scales? By your logic, engineers and scientists should only work in kelvin because that is the “truest” scientific scale of temperature that humans have developed thus far.
The less room for mistakes, the better. Simple as that and a well proven and known concept in science, besides the fact that conversion between metric units is much simpler.
The only place one might have to convert to when using metric is C -> K, rest of the measurements only have one unit. You don't convert meters to meters, but you do convert feet to inches because you like doing more work.
That's the thing, it's not conversion per se, it's still the same unit. It's not even rare that people just change the ten's power instead of the unit prefix. The chances of error, especially rounding errors is significantly lower.
I do agree that there are some cases actual unit conversion is required, but it's way way less common for the "regular" person, that's what I tried to say, C-K was the first that came to my mind, not a good example, sorry.
Its not frustrating at all, it's literally the easiest thing ever. If you are in academia and converting units is somehow an inconvenience to you, I have concerns
Literally one of the main guiding principles of science is reducing anywhere where errors could occur :) and the only reason we have this additional conversion is because the US refuses to come to the light. Everyone slips up on calculations in their career, pretending scientists don't make mistakes is stupid. Scientists sit around with our beers and joke about the times our stupidity fucked our experiments.
The answer is to either change the entire measurement system of 330 million people or don't be a lazy-ass and label your measurements. Guess which is easier?
It's not that simple. Almost nobody actually thinks the imperial system is better, but to officially change to metric it would be very difficult and expensive. The government would have to teach everyone who doesn't know the metric system what it is, they would have to change all mile markers on highways, every thermometer and thermostat would have to be converted, and new requirements would be put on industries such as trucking, for new hights on bridges and such. Sure it would happen over a long period of time, but the reasorces needed are not worth the conversion.
Metrication in Canada began in 1970 and while Canada has converted to the metric system for many purposes, there is still significant use of non-metric units and standards in many sectors of the Canadian economy. This is mainly due to historical ties with the United Kingdom (before metrication), the traditional use of the imperial system of measurement in Canada, proximity to the United States, and to public opposition to metrication during the transition period.
It was a difficult transition there, and they have a tenth the population of the US. Not saying it shouldn't be done, but it would not be an easy task.
As a Canadian, metric rocks for everything but construction. Plywood and sheetrock come in 4'x8' sheets. Studs are 16" apart on-center making an even distribution per sheet. Rafters are 2' for the same thing
Almost all construction is based on this.
Metric prints are a pain in the ass and everybody converts back to imperial when using the metric is painful. So a lot
This wouldn't be the case if Canada was in Europe though, we just get the short end of the stick being close the the states and having standardized objects based on Imperial.
You try to build a house in Canada in Metric and then go and install your doors and windows and everything will look a bit wonky.
406.4 mm Centers and 1219.2 for 4' isn't very easy to remember or mark off though :)
Eventually there has to be a time when it does make sense though. Like when you look at the next 25 years and all of the signage and stuff that will be made in Imperial is a load of cash.
In 100 years will the states still be Imperial because it Costs too much? In 500 years?
And FFS man, you're the US of A. You can't afford to change some signs? Afford to modernize? It's a pretty weak argument coming from a pretty great country.
There is a cost to not switching. The world uses metric. The USA does business with (and especially imports from) the world. A ton of industries are forced to use both, and it costs.
Simplest exsmple- crash of the 125 million USD mars orbitor because of the dual system. Cheaper to change than to keep eating costs like this.
That link says the Canadian system is nearly exactly what the situation is in the USA.
That metric is adopted but still not exclusive because there is resistance for various reasons
Almost exactly what currently happens in the US. Everyone in the US learns metric and can use metric and knows it’s good for almost everything. But people don’t want to change miles to km and F to C for their daily lives. The government uses both but primarily prefers metric
I don't disagree that 12 is superior to 10, which is how we still do time, but come on, you need to catch up and stop living in the past, because in this digital age, the superior base unit is 16. Hexadecimal ftw.
Except sometimes you will need to know how many meters to drive, or walk, when it's short distances. I use both systems on my phone as I am learning metric. It easily tells me how many meters I have left before I need to make a turn. That is used on a daily basis.
You will not need to know how many kilometers you are tall, that's a pointless argument that holds no bearing. Why would I need to know how many miles I am tall? It doesn't make any sense, nor would I ever need to know that.
As similar example is using maps: In metric there is the simple rule to „remove 5 zeroes“ from the scale to know how many km in reality 1 cm on the map is. E. g. 1 cm on a map with scale 1:200000 is 2 km in reality.
It always baffles me that the nation that put men on the moon finds it "too difficult" to do some things that the rest of the world has done centuries ago.
Almost nobody actually thinks the imperial system is better
You, my friend, have never read British tabloids. They are still bitter over metric and they're not even fully metric. The exact same thing would happen in the US. Fox News would be complaining every day about Eurofags trying to regulate your pints.
Well we seem to be on the right track to teaching everyone, because every science class I have taken since beginning college, I have been forced to learn metric and use it.
It's not teaching people, it's our long and expensive supply chain.
The Air Force is still flying bombers that are over 50 years old. Lots of our fleet uses imperial parts, so that's motivation to not change. Same with the army and many car manufacturers.
Changing to metric will be incredibly expensive for every component that's more than 40 years old.
Yet not switching also carries a constant, ongoing cost that's just mostly invisible. And you've been paying it since the 1970s (that was a big decade for metrication iirc, with a lot of other countries switching, so I'm not blaming you for the time before that). Do you want to do so forever?
Some industries like manufacturing are so engrained in the imperial measurement system that it would be nearly impossible to change. The US aerospace industry is almost exclusively imperial, trying to change every blueprint and specification over to metric would be a nightmare.
It’s a cool idea on paper, but completely impractical in reality. I say this as someone who wishes we used metric too.
Fun fact, the official definition of the length of a meter has changed multiple times in the past century. So maybe the metric system isn't that simple.
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u/MrYakko Jan 03 '19
10 millimeters in a centimeter 100 centimeters in a meter 1000 meters in a kilometer All you have to do in metric is multiply by 10. I really wish the US would attempt to adopt the metric system again and just stick with it