The English system of measure that we learned as American kids is dead. Feet, miles, pounds, and BTU's are all archaic. Even binary divisions of an inch like 1/2 or 5/32 as logical as they are will not survive. Metric is easier.

Conversion between English and metric is not easier. Metric all by itself is very easy. The whole world except the USA uses it because it is easy. The only hard thing in the metric system is the second, and that is left over from the past. They call it MKS.  It means meter, kilogram, second. Some scientists prefer the smaller version called cgs centimeter, gram, second.

It's not hard. When you reach for a wrench you get a 7 or a 13. Not a 1/4 inch or a 1/2 inch. Nobody in Europe ever prints an article saying that 750 milliliters (1/5 of a gallon) of wine costs $9. They don't bother with the conversion in parentheses  and of course they use Euros for money. Everyone is familiar with a liter and its parts. So are we.

We now sell liters of water. Two liter bottles of Coke. Drugs are sold in metric. I will know we are there when you buy a liter of gasoline for about $0.75, a kilo of ground round for $6 and 2 liters of milk for $3. When the speedometers in the cars measure kilometers per hour and the speed limit is 100, we will worry about how many kilometers per liter our subcompact plug in hybrid cars are getting.

Why is it taking so long? In the 1960's they were talking about metric. It was going to cost billions to convert and more if we didn't. I guess we chose more.

Solar Output

Home / Sign In / Privacy
		Web Application By

 

sitemap