But fortunately we have google.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=8.7 liters/100 km in mpg&btnG=Search or http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=8.7 liters/100 km in miles per uk gallon&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=6FZ&q=174 pounds/square inch in kilograms/square meter&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=4aE&q=1,6 grams/cubic centimeter in pounds/cubic foot&btnG=Search

You have to realize that all of industrial U. S. uses the English units, and it would be too hard to re-fit and re size all of their existing units. It would even be hard enough to do the same for just new units, because you would still have the problem of conversions when working with the old units. The English system will be used either until it is mandated to use or all industry gets wiped out in the U.S. (and Liberia and Myanmar) and we have to start from scratch.

This is my theory: the right time for adoption passed. A standardized system of measurement was sought, particularly in the European countries, so, for example, everyone was trading in the same quantity of bananas. Inter-Europe trade, as well as engineers rebuilding post-world War 2 Europe made the push for metric. (Which is why England was the last country to make the switch, since they were isolated from the rest of Europe.)

The US was an island all onto itself, so trade wasn't dramatically affected by not using metric. The serious effort to go to metric hit in the late 1960s...but by the early 70's, some of the main proponents of metrification--engineers and other people who use units--became less interested. Why? Calculators. Once every engineer had an HP on their desk, the need for a base 10 universal measurement system became far less and people just didn't have the fire in their belly anymore.

According to my theory, we'll never switch now. It's easier to convert than to standardize.

Actually, the reason they didn't really try to convert until th 70s is that the SI system wasn't developed until 1960. The SI system is the revised version (that everyone uses now) of the metric units used before. I'm not sure how they're different, maybe more official? But I think, considering the U.S. has been teaching the metric units since about 1893, it's ridiculous we didn't convert when we had the chance.

Use of miles does have advantages on US highways, in that most every major city west of the Mississippi river has their major streets layed out in a grid that is roughly one mile long by one mile long. Making all east/west and north south/interstate exits almost exactly on a mile apart for signage. Converting interstate exits to meters would introduce very odd fractions or inaccurate distances on signs due to 1 mile equaling 1.609 meters.

1 mile = 1.609 Kilometres.

Yeah, and just try to imagine how the thing would be if Americans used metrics...

I really understand what he's saying, i just for fun googled 8.7 liters/100 km to mpg. And it gave me the answer of ~27mpg. And then i actually looked for websites that referenced it. Up pops a site about BMW, which says that 8.7 liters/100km is equal to 22.5mpg. Obviously there are problems with conversion, And it just makes sense to switch.

The problem here is that the BMW website being a European Company will be referencing Imperial Gallons rather than US Gallons. Not only does the US insist on using the old Imperial System they also arbitarily change the size of the units. The US Gallon is smaller than the actual Imperial Gallon therefore making a gas mileage of 22.5 mpg Imperial equal to ~27 mpg US.

Another sign of the arrogance of the US is that they (and Canada by default) are the only English speaking countries in the world that drive on the right side of the road.

barsoom - This has nothing to do with the original article, but there are actually far more countries in the world that officially drive on the right than on the left - 74 drive on the left, 165 drive on the right. The only reason England doesn't drive on the right is because Napoleon never conquered it and forced it to change from the left-side driving established during the Roman Empire, to right-side driving which was the standard in France and which he forced all the other European countries he conquered to use.

So much for the American "arrogance" theory - I think the most obvious answer to the question in the article has been posted above. The US is full of manufacturing facilities that all have machines with the old measurements - and when you replace an old very expensive machine with a new very expensive machine, you're unlikely to change the metrics used because that would force a change to all the other very expensive machines used in your manufacturing process.

There was a metric board commissioned by Congress that ran through the Carter administration and was killed by Regain.
From the looks of it it was mandated under the Ford Admin without teeth and from the looks of it "made to fail" from before the very start.
Here's a summery:

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/usmb.html

I first heard that the USA will be converting in 1975. The most noticeable sign was gasoline sold by the liter, which caused great confusion. About the same time, McDonald's had McMetric rulers, which got me hooked on the metric system. I was 8 years old then. Vanity might be another issue, with body measurements posing an interesting situation. It would be natural to choose the unit that would give the most flattering number. If there is pressure to make a body part larger, we might use the smaller unit, the centimeter. If the pressure is for a given part to be smaller, we might use the larger unit, the inch. Although there is much pressure to lose weight, the USA still uses pounds, although kilograms might produce a more flattering number.

I really can't tolerate the imperial system ,it seems irrational when compared to metric. Hasn't the imperial system caused confusion and failures such as the early faults with the Hubble space telescope.One thing that really gets my goat is the American use of the fahrenheit scale rather than the rational celsius.In celsius, water freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100, while fahrenheit seems plainly insane. I can't see how there would be much difficulty with adopting celsius,it could be done overnight.There seems to be some sort of bizaare conservatism at work.

Actually you are probably referring to the Metric/US measurement debacle that resulted in loosing Mars Climate Orbiter. The issue was a little more complicated then just that, however, so it is not a good example.

Hubble's optics were flawed due to a sensor misalignment. It was identified beforehand,but the management at Perkin-Elmer (who oversaw the grinding of the lens) decided that the sensor was fine and that the devices checking it's work were in error. Ironically, Kodak oversaw an independently produced flight spare which was ground perfectly. Lesson: In unfamiliar waters, go with a brand that you're pretty sure can do the job right the first time.

I think what the world fails to recognize is the truly enormous industrial production power of the US.. Even though one just assumes everything is made in China these days, it turns out the US still exports far more product than China does.

What does this have to do with the Metric system? Everything. Whether the world wants to accept this or not, much of what happens in the US, be it culture, language or business practices gets copied overseas. Hyper-capitalism is a good example. Practices that seemed dirty footed in the days of old are now "Just doing Business" today. And this now holds true in Japan, just as it does in the US, but at least to the scale that it does, US businesses are much more miserly on average than the rest of the world.

So again, what does this have to do with the metric system? Businesses in the US are notoriously tight fisted. If a change is recommended but has no direct benefit to the manufacturer, then regardless of the long-term gains, why would they spend the money.. Maybe there are long term gains but in the US, long term gains are nothing in comparison to short term gains today. Make your long term gains one short term gain at a time.

But it's actually even more complex than that... In short, to the average American, metric units are not useful. The granularity of Celsius isn't there. A spread of 40 degrees between butt-ass freezing and burned to a crisp is laughable. The centimeter is too small for measuring dough or wood, the meter too big and nobody uses decimeters, which are still too big for medium household measurements. Unless you are measuring cocaine, grams are worthless, to the point that one has to use thousands of them to do anything useful in average daily life. Who thought that one up? But there's more. Without going into specifics (you can look elsewhere on this) machining threads accurately is a pain using metric machinery and is why many plants in manufacturing refuse to deviate from standard units.

So there you go.. My two bits.

You forgot to mention in your article that in many areas the US uses the metric system. Military, one of the biggest manufacturing industries. In science, NASA uses the metric system throughout. Famously, the Mars orbiter crash was caused by one contractor supplying non-metric parts and calculations. Whenever the US manufactures a product for external sale it has to create a metric product. Think of a major manufacturing industry and it buys or sells parts from non-US countries. Do you think it is easy for GM to make separate US only components for internal sales?

Most of the auto manufacturing is all in metric. You cannot be a global manufacturer without having a product marketable in all countries. People in the U.S. may use a 1/2" socket on a 12mm bolt, but it is sloppy and it is still a 12mm bolt. The only advantage to not convert is if you never plan on exporting your product. Everything has to be converted to sell in other countries and it is an added expense to manufacturers who export.

If they woould just start teaching the metric system at the grade school lvl instead of waiting untill high school were it is already going to be odd to the students

Ummm, I'm a junior in high school, but I went to a private school until eighth grade. I was taught how many centimeters in a meter, etc., but not that there are 2.54 cm in an in. I'm not sure how it went at the public school. But I knew before I got to high school that it's a hell of a lot easier to move a decimal point.

WHY IS THE US SO BACKWARD IN ADOPTING THE METRIC SYSTEM? WE WILL HAVE TO SOON TO COMPETE WITH THE WORLD MARKET.

I'm working on a biology assignment right now to persuade people that we need to convert. Now this poster will just hang in the hallway outside the classroom. But if you find a way to convince every single person in the U.S to convert, you let me know, all right?

Quote"I think what the world fails to recognize is the truly enormous industrial production power of the US.. Even though one just assumes everything is made in China these days, it turns out the US still exports far more product than China"


Actually, China is the world's largest exporter. It overtook Germany to take the title.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/china-overtakes-germany-to-become-largest-exporter-1864052.html

r u sure

The US was the first nation other than France to adopt the Metric System. See the Metric Act of 1866. American people, on the other hand, are FREE MEN who may use whatever measure we want. Free men in the US continue to use CONVENIENT measurements without a government cramming its nonsense down our throats.

A mile is 1,000 paces. Try that with your meters.

The length of a meter was supposed to simplify navigation by being a decimal fraction of the distance from equator to pole. It was supposed to be 10,000km. Its wrong. It fails utterly because its the wrong length. You still have to use a conversion factor.

erm 1 kilometer is 1000 meters :/ done yr imosible calculation may i hav a prize? :)

Perhaps someday your "Free Men" will learn to do math, just like us "slaves" in the rest of the world, haha!

and how long is a pace its pretty simple to adjust the length of a pace to be a meter

Date 2011-12-19.
Americans will come up with every imaginable excuse not to change to metric. Why? Because they believe that no one else in the world but the Americans can and should be leaders on the world stage. True, America has achieved very many great things but they should also be able to admit when their system is outdated has been surpassed by a better system but they just can't bring themselves around to admitting it. They're too proud - foolishly proud. So, because the metric system wasn't developed by the Americans and because of the strong focus on this issue, America will choose to continue to use feet, inches, Fahrenheit, gallons, etc.
I also think there is a part of the American culture which developed when the Americans threw off the yoke of British rule. This culture now is one of intolerance of any external pressure or persuasion even if it is for the good of America. This culture very often prevents America from adopting better ideas from other countries or communities.
I wonder if anybody has tried to quantify the damage and loss to America and its economy by America not changing to the metric system. I think we would stand amazed if this ever were to become a known quantity. For one, SAE (Standard American Equivalent) is associated with feet and inches which leaves the subconscious impression that American products must therfore be inferior to products produced in countries where the metric system is used. Is this perhaps part of the reason why GM found itself in a position where it had to be bailed out?
Also, America is more concerned with financial and social studies than it is with engineering. For instance, America has been able and willing to introduce a whole range of changes associated with political correctness but has simply refused to work and achieve metrication.