Why is it So

[TrevorW]

Can anyone tell me why the good old US of A has a decimal currency system yet has an imperial measuring system and still hasn't converted while the rest of the world (mostly) are all metric

It really gets annoying when you have to source different size bolts for those items we get from the US

:question::thanx:

[Benno18]

Because they are the center of the universe Trevor. Everyone knows that.

[ballaratdragons]

. . . . and not everyone else is totally Metric.

Take England as an example.

England is supposed to be a metricised country yet they still use 'miles' not kilometres, and 'Pints' not litres. :shrug:

[miki63au]

So NASA have an excuse not to land on Mars!

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

/sarc off

Mick.

[mill]

Hmm why do a lot of aussies still talk miles and inches and stone and and etc :P
And not only older aussies do it.

[ballaratdragons]

Guilty :P

We are now in 2011 and I still don't understand metric!

The Imperial System is all I ever learnt at school. The imperial system works fine for me. I've never had a job where I've needed anything metric except millimetres when I taught carpentry to youth.
I'm an imperialist through and through :lol:

I use imperial so much that even my kids talk in miles :rofl:

[Trixie]

When I went through school everything was metric. We did very little work in imperial. Most of the oil industry still uses imperial for a lot of things and it was like learning another language when I started work!

I still have to convert everything to metric to make sense of it... My manager used to make us run all of our volumetrics in acre/ft which means absolutely nothing to me!

[astroron]

Don't most Astronomers talk in feet and inches and millimeters, re 20" scope
30-mm Eyepiece :screwy:

[troypiggo]

LOL what a coincidence. I had this conversation with some Amerikuns just recently. Here was one guy's reason why US is still using miles. Because it's "humanised" - a mile is supposedly what a person can walk in a third of an hour.

My response was, of course, that I can walk a kilometre in a third of an hour. There. Humanised. I fixed it. :)

[leon]

In the end dose it really matter, as long as we end up with the right answer, i do everything in metric, but my dear Alice hasn't a clue, and she was taught metric in school 10 years after I started on 14th Feb 1963.

Gees I'm getting old.

Leon

[TrevorW]

It would be nice especially engineering wise if the world used the same measurement system nothing like uniformity

[Ric]

I started out with imperial at school then we changed to metric.

I'm constantly swapping between the two to this day which annoys and confuses my wife.

Come to think of it, sometimes I confuse myself as well. :confused2: :lol:

[mithrandir]

"Slacker Astronomy" is often a good source of imperial/metric shenanigans. One of the presenters is Canadian and talks in metric. The other is American and talks in imperial. They are both well respected in the astro community.

The American is always being stirred about being behind the times.

I have a set of imperial Allen keys - purely purchased to use on my G11. Everything else is metric.

[michaellxv]

I was taught imperial at home and metric at school. I mix'n'match as required. My house was build to imperial measurements, so my ceilings are 11ft high and my shed is 18ft long, but the posts holding the verandah up are 50mmx50mm.

I can't buy a new bookshelf 3ft wide any more to fit into the space so I have to settle for one 900mm wide.

Given their history you would have thought the Americans would have dumped the Imperial system on principal.

[ballaratdragons]

The only thing that seems never to be destined to Metric conversion is time!

It should be easy to break it all down to tens like they do with metric. :thumbsup:

100 metric seconds to a metric minute, 100 metric minutes to a metric hour, 100 metric hours to a metric day :thumbsup:

Bob: What is the time Bill?

Bill: Gee Bob, it's 72 passed 41 :)

:lol:

[M110]

The UK only recently changed to metric. It's gonna take them to fully get the hang of it, just as we did. I was the 1st generation to be brought with the metric system, being born the year after we converted. Metric was the only thing I was taught in school. Yet when I would go parents an older people would using metric, an still do some what.
The UK will need time too.

On the pint thing, I think I will to the pub for a pint is always gonna sound better than, I going to the pub for a 600ml.lol

[M110]

I did ask a yank once and was told it had been put to a referendum once, and got knocked back.

[Matt Wastell]

Why do they dates like this - 10th January 2011.......011011? Cos they can!

[troypiggo]

There's 10 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.

[Jeffkop]

Ah Andrew ... but not NEAR as enticing as "I think I will go down the pub fer a litre"

[asimov]

I think perhaps the American government want to be looked apon as 'unique' - I would probably rather use the term 'behind the times'.

[GrahamL]

Reading round the net , its easy to overlook a little history in that the war of independence pre dates the french revolution .

The need for a new nation to adopt a standard of weights and measures is likely to follow simple trade of the time , which would be the British system, not to mention metric wasn't around just yet .

Why not change ?.. possibly both the UK and US just didn't need to , both became major players in world trade and industry and the rest of the world just had to follow along,

But time rolls along , personally I don't mind comng across some odd size shaft or casting that you can STLL buy bits for :)

[marki]

I don't have a problem with either system but metric is easier to use. The reason they do not change is that most people in the US are used to imperial measurements and see no need to change. It has been about forty years since Australia adopted metric systems yet it is still common to find people talking imperial measurements and you can still buy bolts, drills etc etc of both types. Another reason is that our major car makers (holden/ford) source engines from the US. The chinese synta EQ mounts are also a mixture of both systems no doubt due to the size of the US market. A good place to source all bolts both metric and imperial in Perth is West Coast Fasteners. They have a warehouse in Balcatta but there might be others around, you will just have to look.

Mark

[rat156]

Well, I find distances less than a mile confusing, I can convert miles to km in my head quite quickly, so no problem with them, but when the satnav was quoting feet until turning I was all at sea, I have no visual conception of what five hundred feet is.

Buying timer etc is easy, it's all in metric feet, or 300mm lengths, and usually in metric inches (25, 50, 75mm).

All bolts, nuts etc. should be in mm, 13mm is bigger than 12mm, but what's the next increment up from 1/2"? What's Whitworth? What's AF? I think I've almost got my head around BSP though?

People's heights should be in feet and inches, their weights in kg.

Cheers
Stuart

[M110]

lol. yep, hooray for metric!