Why didn't the USA ever adopt the Metric System? (Short Animated Documentary)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- The USA is famously one of the few countries on Earth that doesn't use the Metric System. So why doesn't it? To find out watch this short and simple animated history documentary.
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Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson did have one major success in metrifying the USA: decimalized currency. The American dollar was one of the world's first currencies to be divided in 100 parts.
That is amazing. I never knew the metric system invented the number 100. I guess you learn something new every day.
@@GoatTheGoat It has probably more to do with the fact that 100 cent is 1 Dollar is 10 Dime.
@@fana9863 all of which has nothing to do with meters.
But do we really need pennies, nowadays??
@@GoatTheGoat The english money system is not decimal.
"Went the extra 1609 meters"
This channel is pure gold
Gold, Jerry, GOLD!
I didn't pay attention to that until I see your comment, then I understand. So true it's such gold
I don't get it. Someone explain please
@@zhengyangwang214 1609 meters equal one mile
I love the "Freedom Units" sign lol
"This is when president Gerald R. Ford went the extra 1609 metres...."
I bloody love your humour.
2:21, I was just about to mention that joke. That was pure gold. 👌
I don’t get what the number is supposed to mean
@@suspectnutria 1609 meters is roughly 1 mile. "To go the extra mile" is a phrase meaning to go further than needed to achieve something.
@@suspectnutria he meant the "extra mile". It's an idiom.
I love his bloody humour too! And that's British humor with a U as you so correctly wrote.
As an elementary and middle school student in the 60s and 70s, we constantly studied for the “big conversion to the metric system”. Then, one day it was dropped and never mentioned again. I learned as a young adult, that it was the high cost of industry retooling that killed it. I became a scientist, using mainly American Practical Hydrologic Units for work and could well believe it, every day was a crazy mix of systems and units from here, there and everywhere. We all wasted a lot of time converting quantities all the time to use them in equations.
Spot on.
I remember that same 'big conversion' that was coming in the early 80's.
Same here, 70s and 80s. I remember the commercial that said "you get more from a liter".
And then I start working in auto mechanics and everything is in metrics. Even Ford and GM cars. I mean we still use standard for miles and weight and such. But mostly tools and threads are easier in metric.
i was one of those of those kids too...we had to learn "freedom units" outside...
Your friendly reminder that the Brits still very much use "miles" all the time. In fact, the signs going from Kmh to Mph is one of the few ways you can recognize you've crossed from Ireland into Northern Ireland.
Keep in mind (as my Irish housemate constantly rages to me) most Americans are unaware that Ireland and Northern Ireland are separate countries.
@@DomWeasel Not foe much longer.
My Canadian relatives do the same.
@@DomWeasel yeah that's not really true though. Politics around Northern Ireland are much more well known than you might think.
@XXV I realize that, but in Northern Ireland, the speed signs are in miles per hour, while in the Republic they're in kilometers per hours. I would know, I've literally been then.
If only James Bisonette had been there to implement the metric system.
Seems like it would be difficult
Also Kelly Moneymaker
@@jamesbissonette8002 James Bissonnette
what about boogoley woogely
@@beanseason6515 stlll mad that your channel never took off and you got 7 views on your last upload
The White House interior sets that change to reflect the building’s complete gutting/rebuilding during the Truman era were a nice touch. Well played, HM.
Have you checked out the spinning newspaper articles? They are worth it.
Good attention to detail!
Did anyone notice "douchebag" spelled out?
@@kennethbropson8019 where at?
@@chicagotypewriter2094 At 2:03 - 2:06 at the top of the screen.
I had an argument with my American instructor in the late 80’s as to wether or not a quart was just larger or just smaller than a litre. As a Canadian in the sciences, I was familiar with both and we were both adamant that each of us was correct. It was only after I realized that Canadian (Imperial) and US quarts were not the same size. So yes, we were BOTH correct.
These types of disagreements are so much easier to resolve nowadays with the internet. Half the arguments I had in college with friends could have been answered in 30 seconds of googling. But google didn't exist yet back then.
He's another argument you might want to considers. You can't both be correct. That flaw in logic disturbs me beyond measure. So please, never say that again. But if you do, know that its a fallacy in logic.
@@krane15 did you actually read the whole comment and understand it?
@@mckenziekeith7434 Yes. And no. No both can be correct.
Please use the Metric System as all humans on this world do.
@@cosmefulanito5933 If you read the whole comment and understood it, then you would be able to see how yes, they were both correct. The problem is that they were using unstated assumptions about the units they were using. Unstated because they didn't even know that there were two different types of quart. I agree, the metric system is better. But I do still sometimes use quarts and gallons for volume.
"Nerds told 'no'" is a headline that could still pop up on a weekly basis.
- Nerds: "We should do something about Climate Change"
- Govt & Corporations: "NO".
Also, funny Elden Ring reference hidden there
They do use the metric system extensively in the US military, presumably because almost everywhere the service is expected to be fighting is going to have road signs marked in kilometers
Soldier: "Sir, I managed to intercept enemy communications saying that they were going to attack 54 kilometers south of Citytown."
Commander: "Okay excellent work....So...how much is that"
Soldier: "Idk. I thought you'd know"
Nah .. it's because NATO.
It’s in order to be able to integrate with allies who use metric, same for us here in the UK.
I prefer imperial system. Distance in kms and height in cms sounds goofy asl.
Except all the soldiers have to the conversions in their heads because we're all use to the English system. And yes, we call it that even though it isn't that.
The articles on the newspaper at 1:40 are just amazing, hats off to your history matters, hats off
Vampires!
"Thou art maidenless" lol
Lol the last two were *chef’s kiss*
I laughed myself
I started to use metric then found myself shopping for "To Serve Man".
When I was in a U.S.Junior High School in the early 1960's, we were given a lot of instruction in the Metric System, being told that somewhere in the near future we would be switching over to it. Obviously that did not happen. However, When I was in the Army National Guard, all measurements were in Metric: Weapons, Bullets, Maps, etc.Our medicines that we are prescribed are also in the Metric System. And we also have a Decimal Feet measurement used by engineers in site planning. When I was an Architect I use to wish we were using the Metric System, which would have avoided fractions when writing dimensions.
That's partially for NATO/Allied inter-operability.
I imagine that the US army does more joint operations with NATO/Allies, who all use metric, rather than Liberia - the only other nation on Earth using US Customary
Nasa is using metric. For a good reason
As a Romanian, the paper article about Metric promoting cannibalism because Transylvanian vampires eat humans is hilarious
That is like when there was a fight dominance in US for AC or DC use of current systems between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla was a for AC which was far more energy effective for using it on longer distances over DC, Thomas Edison who was for DC current (he manufactured more products for DC) tried to do public example of how bad AC current was by doing a public lab show where he exposed an elephant to AC current in which during the show elephant died, and he was like: "See? This is what AC current could do to you!"
You're right' Everyone knows that vampires don't eat people, they suck peoples' blood. Zombies eat people. I'm glad we could clear this up.
@@Resnicanin Not saying Edison was right in any way, but the elephant fact can be taken with more than a grain of salt
The elephant in question was Topsy, who under a horrible life in the circus had squished 3 handlers to death. One of those "savaged her with a pitchfork" and another had "tried to feed her a lit cigarette"
And at the time, electrocution was seen as a "humane way of disposing of a living being." In fact, the ASPCA gave Edison two thumbs-up to kill the pesky pachyderm this way.
And had fed the elephant half a kilo (460 g) of potassium CYANIDE that day, mixed in with carrots
So yes he did execute it, but AC wasn't the only thing that killed Topsy
(I reread this comment & realised I switched the names & currents originally - whoops!)
@@chicagotypewriter2094 I’d say you missed the point about Edison being an opportunist and a showboater. AC can kill you just as dead. It isn’t the “how the elephant died” that we care about, it’s the gain Edison wanted to get from it.
@@509Gman That's very true and a good note to remember as well!
Since the US still uses metric for teaching physics, it's put me in the weird position where I use things like Fahrenheit to talk about the weather but intuitively switch to Celsius to talk about how hot it would be if you were a kilometer away from the core of the sun
i do believe it would be very hot.
Right, bc you totally know that 🙄 this is why people don't trust the religion of science
@@deusvult6920the religion of science 😂 it can be calculated using math
@@deusvult6920 bro really called science a religion 💀💀
@@deusvult6920 i mean i don't think people go around praising newton or einstein
In 1976, I was a student and I subscribed to an electronics magazine in the USA. The figures were in Imperial with metrics in brackets. A few years later, the figures were in metrics with the imperial equivalent in brackets. In 1980 (IIRC), the metrics had totally vanished.
I, too, measure my amperage with good ol American "zaps per square inch".
Reagan was my wake up call as an early adult. I really didn't know much about Nixon, but when Reagan announced the Ketchup packet as a serving of vegetable for the American student lunch, I started realizing just who cared about what. And, just how lazy we were to become.
I am.sure Ronnie Reagan didn't know a liter from a lamppost - he just attracted the kind of people around him that foreign concepts were to be squelched and foreign countries were to conquered or cowered.
Science articles in the US are also often written with both units
It's quite distracting and it makes you lose focus on the content
@@MichaelJohnson-vi6eh So remind me what countries Reagan conquered? I bet you like his killing inflation and economic boom from 1982 on….
I grew up in the 70's in the US, and we did a bit of trying to learn Standard to Metric conversions, which as you might imagine, didn't stick. But when I became a scientist, I learned metric pretty flipping easily because that's what's used 100% in science - you learn by doing. After 35 years of using liters and meters at work and cups and feet at home, I can easily use both. One area where metric is far superior: trying to describe the length of something small - millimeters are perfect!
The argument that switching to metric would require new package labeling is laughable, as the vast majority of our packages are labeled in both ounces and grams.
But the most amusing was my mom's argument against converting to the metric system: she said she didn't want to have to throw away her old measuring cups and buy new ones for cooking. I had to remind her that she could still use her old ones for her recipes - no one was going to come into her house and confiscate her measuring cups! 🙄
I, too, often work with small dimensions, and I have no trouble at all with 64ths, or thousandths, of an inch. For what it's worth, 1/64" = .015625". I have not clue how many metrics it is, nor do I care.
What annoys me more than anything is the dumass manufacturers who make measuring rules with inches along one edge and metrics along the other. It's useless for everyone!
I think one of the reasons it failed in the 70s is because gas prices were so volatile and people thought it was a trick by the government to charge more for gas, since nobody knew how many liters were in a gallon.
Lol, that would be pretty funny. "I don't understand this system, must be a scam", it's a miracle progress was made at all
Americans also always use fixed showers.
America moment
@@ilyatoporgilka That’s not true every shower I’ve ever been in is adjustable
It is always impossible to “put off”.It is unmovable(stationary).
We honestly take for granted how good quality these videos are and how accessible it is.
Bro shut up
You should thank James Bissonette and Kelly Moneymaker for supporting History Matters.
Americans also always use fixed showers.
I like how soda bottles and milk jugs tell the story of metric in the U.S. very clearly. Your typical pop bottle is two liters, because you can sell it across borders without too much fuss. Milk jugs, on the other hand, carry a gallon of milk, which is so heavily regulated by local jurisdictions that it can't even be sold across state lines!
American pop is 2L? How much sugar percentage wise is in it?
Well, it probably has around 200 grams of sugar. Assuming that the 2 liter soda is the same as its canned version (let’s say coke), a 12 oz or 335 ml soda is 39 grams of sugar. Times that by 6 and you’d get 234.
Some stats might be wrong and I used coke since it is probably the most popular soda, but I should somewhat close at least.
@@Toxicin2 You don't drink out of a 2L bottle, you use it to fill glasses. The bottles you drink from are smaller.
@@ruprecht8520 I have seen many people drink out of Two liter bottles and it looks strange but they do it in the summer time just siting outside at party's etc.
@@peters1127 Yes it happens but I didn't want Toxicin2 to think that's the common way.
Thank you for the effort put into the newspapers. Make my day
In the Philippines, we use both systems (metric and imperial) all products have metric (LARGER TEXT) and imperial (smaller text) measurements. But in schools, we rarely use imperial.
I don't think we ever used it at all if I recall correctly (The Imperial System).
Yeah lots of countries still use lots of native units every day
We have it here too, but it's usually like this:
Imperial (Metric)
Everything is dual-labeled in the U.S too. We are officially metric, it's just that in everyday use folks favor the customary units.
It's never usually taught in schools because the Philippines officially uses the metric system since the Spanish Era. We only ever used imperial because of the Americans (even though under their rule we still officially use the metric, under Act No. 1519, s. 1906)
From my experience in the midwest and government jobs, metric is used for most professional environments, and in standard conversations we use imperial. This is not the case in the south and professions like construction, but growing up we were taught metric alongsode imperial and most know both here.
I think it's fair to say that most Americans "know" both systems. The issue is that Americans often don't know how to apply the measurements as well as in US Customary.
Living in the midwest I never encountered metric outside of a science class.
I must know both fluently now... many reasons... but yeah...
@@morewi yeah maybe it is less a regional thing, but I think we know it better than we let on, no evidence to support, just my hunch and experience.
I'm from the South and we were taught the metric system in school, but I have never used it since.
I graduated in the UK as an Engineer. I started Uni in 1969 and we adopted the SI units, Metric in other words, but also had to learn a bit of BTUs and cubic inches etc.
When I got a job in industry, I had to relearn FPS. We still have our pint and cars do MPG(but not the US gallon),petrol is sold in Litres, so you have to convert to UK gallons to get MPG.
And in Canada since our largest trading partner was for sure going metric we did. Sort of. Nowadays you are 6'3" tall, 165lbs, buying gas in litres to put in a 5 gallon jerry can, getting in your 1/2 ton truck with a 5.7L engine and a 38 gallon tank that makes 400hp on 35" tires and heading home at a little over the posted 60km/h limit while drinking coffee from a 16oz travel mug. Returning to your house that is 30' wide made of 2x6s on 5 acres of land and 12km from town (you live an hour from the nearest city of >50,000), you get your chainsaw that has a 42cc engine and 16" bar and cut 4 cord of wood. It's 24C in the house when you turn your oven (propane from a 500lb tank) on to 400F and put in an 18" pizza that weighs 1.6kg before going to your 20cu/ft fridge to get a 2L bottle of pop, don't forget to wash your hands in water heated by a 60 gallon tank with 2400w elements in it. Since it's winter your boat that will make 75 knots is in storage but the 110mph snowmobile is a go, just make sure any ice you cross is >5" thick. You need to live here to understand our measuring system.
I had thought Canada was fully metric until I went to a Canadian grocery store
Yeah, the untold story is that a lot of the British commonwealth is only sort of on metric, having failed to make the transition in one place or another. It is really hard to get adults who can vote to change their measurement system.
When I was a kid growing up in western Canada, everything in the store had a label in French and English and was measured in Imperial and Metric. For the longest time, I thought Imperial measurements were just the French translation of the metric ones.
If you tell me someone is183 cm tall I have no clue how tall they are, but if you say someone else is 6' tall I know exactly how tall they are, even though they're the same height.
Nobody made you go metric. Except your government, which didn't give a rat's ass what the Canadian people wanted. Plus Britain was going metric so it was vital for Canada to imitate everything England was doing. That has always worked out so well.
The things you learn. I thought Imperial had been around...always. Didn't know it was that comparatively young. I'm British and grew up in the 70's and only got taught metric in school. But imperial has never quite died out here.
"...never quite"? Imperial is dominant in the UK. Everything is miles, yds and Lbs. Did you missed the bit where the EU tried to force metric on us and people got pissed off so they U-turned? 🙄
Car speed, people's height and babies weight only thing measured in imperial in the UK. I'm in my 40s and have no idea how many ounces in a pound as have never used then once in my life.
The imperial, unlike the empire, doesn't die
@@Jin-Ro they were pissed mainly because the French invented the metric system
In the UK it would probably be more accurate to say we use an odd hybrid of both system. Where there are something that we specially measure in one and other things that we often measure in the other.
This is an odd one really. Here in Britain too both the imperial and metric units are used. Although distances on roads are in miles, kilometers are sometimes used, whilst for fuel-petrol/diesel it is in litres, although it used to be in gallons. Thank you!!
And the weather too is measured in Celsius-formerly Centigrade-rather than Farenheit, which it used to be also.
Thank you!
When you see a distance on a road sign, does it clearly indicate miles or kilometers? Otherwise those who are not familiar with the region might be surprised, it takes 50% more time to drive 20 miles than 20 kms. And what about the speed limits and car speedometers?
@@jfrancobelge Nope there's usually nothing on road signs in the UK that signify whether the number you're looking at is miles or kilometres but it's gonna be miles like 99% of the time. Speed limit signs are the same but again very rare you would find a speed limit sign in KPH in the UK and if you did it would probably have both MPH and KPH on it.
Our car speedos are in miles per hour but most cars have a second row of notches and numbers for kilometres per hour as well.
The UK is really all over the place with it's adoption of Metric, like most drinks come in millilitres or litres but milk is still in pints. If you buy a bottle or can of beer from a shop it comes in like a 500ml bottle but if you buy beer in a pub it's gonna be in pints. Yet everything else in a pub (wine measures, shot measures) are done in millilitres. People (mainly older people) talking about the temperature will flip-flop between celsius and fahrenheit depending on which one sounds more extreme (100F sounds a lot hotter than 38C for example).
TV screens are measured in inches still, a person's height is measured in feet and inches, weight in stones and pounds. Cooking weights however are usually done in grams, kilograms, etc. Blueprints or furniture measurements usually have both feet/inches and metres/centimetres on them. Honestly there's way more things that I'm forgetting but I just wish we'd pick one and stick to it lol.
@@jfrancobelge Speed limits and distances on public roads in the UK are measured in miles. There may be some exceptions, where the same is also given in km./kph near ferry ports. As for speedometers, most dials these days are marked in both kph and mph - or have a supplementary display showing kph (as in my Skoda) - or are digital and can be set either way.
I think it needs to be said here that the biggest reason is because it took 20-30 years to standardize measurements across all states. The US was one of the first country to have a standardized system across all territories. So when Metric became a thing across Europe in the early 1800s. Many Americans simply didn’t want to go through another 20-30 year period of standardization since at the time the federal government had limited means to enforce it.
You do realise that measurements were standardized in Europe way before Metric was invented ?
@@stevii3940 lol no. France itself before their revolution had 3000 kinds of weights
@@manofcultura sounds like a nightmare XD
@@stevii3940It wasn’t standardized as the way your thinking it to be.
There was different standards for each European country but each country had there own versions standardized within there own borders.
@@manofcultura lol yes. Just England as an exemple/ It was standardize since Henry the 8th. of course it wasn't precise, like was the Metric system at it's strat but it was a standardize system
Fun Fact - metrification has made massive inroads in the USA via the automotive industry. Bolts, nuts and other fasteners are metric due to the globality of the automotive supply chain. So in US Measurement country, its automotive technicians are using metric sockets n spanners, excepting for quite old vehicles and some unicorns.
You can't begin to understand how much it pisses me off when I'm working on a vehicle and I find that some of the parts are in Imperial, and some are in Metric. I'm just like, pick one or the other!
Quite old meaning early 2000s and unicorns meaning most vehicles ever made.
@@MrFarmer110 I had a Jeep once. Two bolts on the starter. One was SAE one was metric. That took a long time to figure out while under the vehicle.
I mean, Metric bolts and nuts, but when we're torquing a bolt, we still use Ft-lb compared to Nm.
Also obligatory magic 10mm socket growing legs and walking away.
@@MrFarmer110 That was an issue in WWII, some planes used both imperial and US customary units for fasteners and such. So the bolts would have different threads, you'd have one set for the engine and one set for everything else.
I dipped my toe into the manufacturing field for a bit and it's amazing just how much we'd have to change in order to fully convert to Metric.
I'd imagine it would be a phase in process that would happen over a decade or two. That would require new products to be explicitly metric though.
What's amazing is how much it wouldn't matter too. Everything is measured in decimals in manufacturing. If your DRO is showing you the right numbers, it doesn't matter if it's metric or imperial
It's not like you'd have to invent everything. Literally every other part of the world uses SI in all their processes. All the tools required already exist and are waiting in warehouses across your own country.
@@Barnaclebeard At this point it would just feel like giving up. Im fine with clinging onto it till the day we perish.
Not really. almost all standard ball bearings are metric. All vehicle tires are metric. All of the products the we buy from China are all made to metric (SI) standards - you just don't know it because you probably never worked on any of them. I was a machine designer for over 45 years and learned to work with both. Linear dimensions are easy to convert to close approximations from one to the other.
Ironically, the USA, Liberia and Myanmar have also benefited immensely from the metric system because now they only have to convert their imperial units to one international system to work with the rest of the world rather than to dozens of different local systems.
Fucking spam bots in these comments
Aka somewhat using the metric system :p
....I think you're missing the point here. Sure, metric eliminated "different local systems", but now US is one of the "local system" from the outside world.
Our measurements are all standardized in terms of metric units. Actual stem professionals have been using metric this whole time
As an *American* , I say, you know America, maybe there's a *reason* most of the rest of the world adopted the Metric system.
Loved reading that New Jersey Tabloid ...
"Such calls were immediately dismissed as promoting cannibalism." And then it goes on about vampires.
And the feeling woman responding to a survey during childbirth just put it over the top!
Nice attention to detail, well done!
What? No entiendo. Explique, por favor.
@@Svensk7119 Pausa el video en 1:39 y lee el periódico que ves.
@@CosmicCleric Ocho harasho! Spasiba. Tusen takk. Sheh-sheh! Y gracias por la respuesta in Español! Necesito practicar mas.
@@Svensk7119 You speak English well (per your other comments), so I don't know why you originally asked me in Spanish, but you're welcome.
P.S. In case you are a bot, could you please respect my time and leave me alone? I would appreciate it, thank you.
@@CosmicCleric I have never heard any speak so politely to a potential 'bot before...
I am a living, breathing human being, so, no no, I haven't been 'bot.
I spoke in Spanish for I wanted to speak it. I never get enough practice. And your Spansk was excellent. Spanish. Your Spanish was excellent.
As an American, I loved the “freedom units” at the end and can confirm that the conversion rates shown are accurate
Americans also always use fixed showers.
clearly it’s 10 freedoms per constitution, as clearly stated in the bill of rights
@@ilyatoporgilka How many more times are you going to post this pointless comment? You were refuted above. Enough already. Your use of "always" is enough to have discredited you from the beginning.
@@TheDoctor1225 LMAO, right? And if he thinks this random, and very incorrect thing, about our showers, imagine how his brain will explode when he finds out we **DO** use the metric system.
Like, do these people seriously think we sent a man to the moon using imperial measurements? Lol. You can’t even go to the doctors without being weighed in kg, and when you pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, it’s always in mg or some other metric measurement.
Sure, we talk about the temperature in Fahrenheit and our height in feet, but when it comes to anything with science involved, we use the metric system.
Honestly videos like these that perpetuate lies are very annoying.
As a construction manager here in Canada, I can tell you most trades still work in Imperial. Often construction plans for public projects are in metric, and I spend a good part of time converting everything so that the workers understand what it is they're supposed to be doing. 3.28 and 25.4 are my mathematical friends.
Nice! I like that! Metres to feet, mike-mikes to inches!
I’ve read that private stuff and most tools are in Imperial. Aside from Quebec, ofc.
@@friskjidjidoglu7415I find most tools are in both tbh.
Even working in central Europe I have frequently to convert mm in inches for our US customers.
Even from Australia, which officially is metric since decades, I received drawings for new buildings formally in metric, but obviously designed in imperial units and then converted.
I have the impression the building industry is one of the most conservative branches.
I worked at American Airlines for 20 years mainly rebuilding aircraft engines. I transferred to the docks (working on live aircraft) & was assigned to the Airbus a-300 line. All the dimensions for layouts of upgrades were in metric. All the mechanics working there went to the laborious chore of converting everything to English measure (which most Americans call "American measure). I went out & purchased a Stanley metric tape measure and avoided the constant and aggravating use of the calculator. Co-workers treated me like a traitor even though I could work faster in metric than they could making all the calculator moves. When using a calculator you end up with a decimal answer anyway so why not just use metric. Also, I had worked as a machinist so I could transfer decimal parts of an inch into close fractions, I had memorized down to 1/16" in decimal.
We adopted Metric in Canada in the 70s and there are old people who are still furious about it.
I used to have to take a patient's blood pressure before his temperature because if he saw his temp in Celsius he'd get pissed off and spoke his BP
Rebel Canadian
My car gets forty to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!
-Abe "Grandpa" Simpson
I mean, go to a grocery store in the US and everything you buy will have metric values on it as well for weight, volume, etc. All medicines and nutrition facts are in metric as well. We kind of have a weird hybrid, but people will always tell you their height in feet and how far away a town is in miles. It's a mess, but as I understand it, I could tell a Canadian or British person my height in feet and inches and they world know exactly what I'm talking about.
The Brits and Canadians would probably understand because (at least us brits anyway) use a hybrid system that is just insane. So many of us understand both. Although the younger generations are more accustomed to metric and have no idea what most imperial measurements are. Which is a good thing imo, at least we're getting a standard. May have taken a while, but we're getting there.
Just some of the measurement systems we use:
Weight and height of most objects, metric
Weight and height of people, imperial
Speed, imperial (although I think metric is becoming more common despite imperial still being the standard)
Distance, imperial (but again, metric is becoming more popular and is slowly becoming more common than imperial)
Measurement of liquids, honestly I have no idea. Sometimes it's litres, sometimes it's fl oz, sometimes it's pints, it depends on the day I guess.
And don't even try to look at British baking or cooking guides. Some use metric, some use imperial and some use both. Some things use both ounces/lbs and grams/kg.
It's funny. We bully the Americans for using mostly imperial and refusing to switch over to metric, yet we use a hybrid system that would confuse pretty much any immigrant or tourist that chose to come here. Never go to the uk, it's a confusing mess and none of us have any idea what is happening or why.
Canadians too also use hybrid systems. Many contractors and private building companies still use imperial out of habbit. Food prices are displayed prominently in pounds to make it look cheaper. And any human measurement is done in inches and feet because we are a bit too immature thinking a meter is too big for height measurements and centimetres are a bit too small for... other measurements.
Grocery stores... ok.
Show me anyone who sells beer or soda on "10-packs". Or a 10-pack of eggs.
Where I shop, it is always six-packs, 12-packs and 24-pack.
Now go to the Home of Metric. Look at the EU Flag. They could have picked any number of stars for their flag...
They picked 12.
Contrary to popular belief, metric is NOT a Base 10 system. It will always be infused with Seconds. And when you understand the reason why Metric Time was such a dismal failure, then you will understand the Achilles Heel of the entire metric system.
It fails when you attempt to do a division as simple as divide by three. Or divide by four. It is simply not harmonious.
And this is why there will never be Metric Music, where measures are divided into 10 beats, with octaves divided into 10 semitones...
Because it sounds HORRID.
All music you listen to uses octaves divided into 12 semitones. Just like our clocks. If it was 10, and that was forced on us, then everyone would be throwing their stereos out the window.
Metric is simply not harmonious.
Grab a six pack and have a drink to that.
@@dahawk8574 Dude what are you talking about? Metric doesn't have anything to do with counting things only by tens. French people can have three children without having to have some more to be metric enough, and they didn't have to change their tricolore to some sort of 'decimal flag'. You sound unhinged. Go spend a nice even third of a dollar on a 2-litre of Coke and enjoy having no metric in your life
@@kourii: "You sound unhinged."
Maybe you should go and try to find a Metric Watch, and go find a composer of Metric Music, and if you succeed in such a quest, then we might be able to resume a rational conversation.
But you will fail, if you try to find these things. They do not exist.
Or rather, you might be able to find a metric watch in some kind of Museum of Failed Inventions.
kourii: "Go spend a nice even third of a dollar on a 2-litre of Coke and enjoy having no metric in your life"
I've already explained how Coke is sold in 6-packs. And in 12-packs.
Have you ever seen it sold in a 10-pack? I have not.
These are HARD FACTS that I have presented. You refusing to accept them is not a problem with me. It speaks to your relationship with reality.
kourii: "French people can have three children without having to have some more to be metric enough..."
Notice what happens, biologically, when a French person has a child. Two gamete's fuse to form a zygote. This is ONE single cell. Perhaps you are aware of how this cell then develops into becoming a human being...
One cell divides, becoming 2. It divides again, becoming 4. Here is the sequence:
1 > 2 > 4 > 8 > 16 > 32 > ...
Do I need to go on?
For every country which has converted to metric, this is still how their babies are made. It is no different, regardless of which measuring system a government attempts to impose. This happens to be a NATURAL sequence which MIRRORS the system maintained in the USA. It is likewise a number sequence which fits quite well with ALL composers of music. Look at any sheet music, from Bach to Daft Punk. You will find these numbers sequenced above in their music. Daft Punk is two French dudes, and every song they have ever put out is infused with this natural sequence. Look for any Metric Sequence of numbers, and you will not find it.
Because if they attempted to do this, then they would immediately fail as musicians. Because... Metric Lacks Harmony.
Go ahead and bury your head if that's how you wish to deal with these hard facts.
Yes, I AM the problem here. I am the one who is unhinged. Sure, if that makes you feel better. Believe whatever you want to believe.
Go petition the EU to change their flag to 10 stars, and see how far you get.
Here's another item you can go out and look for, but you will NEVER FIND:
- A metric compass.
Because as soon as you divide a circle into:
- North,
- South,
- East,
- West,
That extremely simple, basic division will drive you AWAY from Base 10.
You will NEVER find any compass. Nor will you ever find any GLOBE that has been divided into slices of 10 for either Latitude nor Longitude.
And this is the ultimate irony of metric...
They set out to define the meter, with this goal of eliminating fractions. And what is the very first thing they do? The choose to divide the globe into FOURTHS. They decided to base the meter on 1/4th of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole.
This fact right there should make it clear to anyone how metric was doomed from Step 1. It contradicted its own principles from the very start. Eliminate fractions by starting with a fraction.
Now consider the units used in ANY airplane you have ever flown in. The standard here is KNOTS. Nautical miles per hour. Notice how NO ONE uses km/hr. Because it absolutely makes no sense. A unit that was defined based upon the globe is USELESS when navigating the globe.
Everyone still uses this HARMONIOUS system which was adopted from the Sumerians and Babylonians. Division by 12. Division by 24. Division by 60.
It will NEVER become metric. Because Lat/Long, compasses and TIME are all harmonious. Whereas metric is not, and cannot ever be.
Ok, you can now FILE ALL of this information into your UNHINGED (Do Not Ever Open, even in case of Emergency) bin. Promptly discard. Even better if you just never read any words that I have presented.
That is one sure way for any believer in Metric to not have their views threatened by simple facts. I AM THE PROBLEM HERE. You and your beliefs are perfectly find. Nothing to see here. Move along...
Ah, yes! I'm glad your video cites the "Banjoes/Bigfoot Compromise" - it is a *pivotal* milestone from the 1980's in our diplomatic relations with Canada, vis a vis determining how many players Canada is allowed to field in the NHL.
For anyone curious, the amount of players Canada may provide to the NHL is "all of them, except a handful of Russians and Swedes".
I'm an Aussie, born in 1960, and I remember when Australia went metric in the early 70s. Having been taught the Imperial system during my early school years and the metric system in my later years, I'm comfortable with both. But I personally believe the metric system to be the better of the two as it's far more straightforward, being all in multiples of ten. The approach I chose to get used to metric was not to convert to Imperial in my head, but instead to familiarize myself with the intrinsic sizes of the metric measurements. For example, I wouldn't think of a centimeter as being "roughly half an inch", or of a kilometer being "about five-eights of a mile" - instead I familiarized myself with the actual metric sizes themselves.
Even so, I'm still just as likely to say "ten feet away" as "three meters away". I freely use either depending on where my mind is at the time 🙂
But I can understand why the US doesn't go metric at this point in time. The Imperial system is simply too entrenched there, and changing everything to metric would not only be a colossal undertaking, but would be hideously expensive. Just think about what would be involved - all the road signage, instrumentation, labeling on products, equipment for manufacturing those products, regulations and documentation... the list goes on and on. It simply would not be a viable, nor cost-effective, course of action in the US today. It was doable in 1970s Australia because we had a fraction of the US' population at the time and a fraction of the infrastructure. Had we stayed with Imperial, switching to metric today would be a daunting task for us as well.
@Markus Andrew America (the United States of America) has not converted to metric for the same reasons as why there is still discrimination here, why Christian prayer is still desired in public schools, why abortion bans are being forced on others, why citizens can buy assault weapons (or any weapons), why people voted for the Orange Julius, and on and on: because we have a bunch of idiots here.
Yes, if you work in metric use metric measuring devices and you do not need to constantly convert anything. If you are working in what you call imperial then simply use imperial measuring tools no conversion needed. Why complicate things unnecessarily?
Like you I was 11 years old when we converted to metric in Australia. I remember it became illegal for a few years at least to sell things like rulers with imperial measurement markers on them. Presumably to give it enough time to bed in the conversion. Imagine make imperial rulers illegal in the US. QAnon would go nuts.
@@mendocinobeano QAnon goes nutz practically every day so that would be nothing new.
It's easier to get 1/3 of 12, than of 10. Non-metric was optimized for everyday use, metric was optimized for scientific calculations.
Fun fact: As a kid in the 70's and 80's I was ONLY taught the metric system in school. Which was worthless outside of school, since no one used it. Right after I graduated high school, it was decided that schools would go back to teaching the old system. Hence all my education in the metric systemic is useless here in the USA, and yet, I was never taught the system we actually use.
What state were you in? I was in Maryland for late elementary, middle school, and high school in the 70s and distinctly remember teachers telling us we *had* to learn Metric, because the country was inevitably changing. But it was taught as an afterthought (I still know none of it) and gradually went away by the end of the decade.
OTOH, my husband is a physician and lives in a world where both exist: at work, it's mostly metric, and they convert without even thinking about it (pounds to KG, for example); at home, no metric. Though his learning of metric mostly started in college science classes (he's from rural Illinois and wasn't taught it at all in the 70s), so the societal move then retraction had nothing to do with it.
As someone who is not American, I have an opposite problem. Apart from inches (which is similar in length from the tip of the thumb to the first line/joint), I find myself not using the Imperial system.
I guess if America weren't so big in the world's economy, I and other Asians wouldn't be going to the trouble of learning how to convert from one measurement to another and vice versa.
As an engineer, I hate the imperial system. There is nothing better about the imperial system from what I can see.
@@chrispitterle8831 As an amateur engineer aspiring to be a real engineer, the way I see it is:
1. Measure in US Customary, so I understand how big everything is.
2. Convert to Metric, so calculations do not take long.
3. Convert Metric results back to US Customary, so I understand what everything is doing and do not hurt myself.
@@dannypipewrench533 that seems like a good approach from a napkin math side of things.
When you get into the thermal sciences side of engineering the metric system makes life so much easier. Unfortanatly there are many cases where the common measurment is not a compatible unit (kg to lb, one is mass one is force)
The converstions balloon on these so significantly, especilally when the values ahould be simple.
It’s not just about decimals like
Distances : mm - cm - dm - m - km
Mass: gram - kg
If you intend to study physics you should set your mind to the metric system because all physics units are derived from the metric system.
Force : 1 Newton (N) is the force that gives an object with the mass 1 kg an acceleration of 1 meter per second square
Energy: 1 Joule (J = Nm) is the unit of energy, equal to the force of one Newton acting through one meter. 1 Joule is ALSO equal the electric energy unit Ws (Watt second) !!!!
Power ( Energy/ time): The unit of power is Watt (W) which is the same as joules per second (J/s).
So the electric units are nicely connected to the mechanical units with the added unit Ampere for current !!!
If you intend to study science you must get used the units defined as SI (MKSA = Meter, Kilogram, Second, Ampere )
There was also that ill-fated venture in 1793 when Jefferson sent a ship to France to get the kilogram standard. On its way back, the ship ran into a storm, which blew it so far off course that they managed to get themselves and the ship captured by pirates. Long story short, the pirates got the standard and Sec of State Jefferson didn't feel he had the clout to secure funding for a second voyage. Who knows, if it weren't for that storm, the US might have been one of the first countries to adopt the metric system.
if you know the conversion formula, then you don't need the second standart, you can make it by yourself. You can also make the standard yourself using the historical first sample method. So the story sounds very American
@@Tony-. That's not how it was done in 1793. Back then, you had to have an actual bar/weight/etc1 that was copied with exacting precision from the original. Every country, when they used different measurement systems, had these stored in some secure location, and when they adopted the metric system, they had to send someone to France to get copies of the originals. Using math for this sort of thing was just something that wasn't done until the 20th century.
@@thomasrinschler6783 I agree, it's reasonable. Scientific progress was different and it was cheaper to buy an ingot than to create it at the risk of making an error. But if you live across the ocean and you have European technologies, then exceptions appear to every rule) In the same USA, they used the metric system when necessary and without any standards.
Thank God Divine Providence saved us from that ignoble fate.
I just want to make it clear to everyone who doesn't live in the US that we do rely on the metric system in certain industries. I work at a cargo agency that deals with all sorts of freight that enters the country internationally, and it is all measured in meters and kilos. Very rarely has anyone asked me how much something is in pounds or feet. I haven't worked in domestic trade, but I'm sure they know metric too.
Well here in Colorado we do kilos and have a Radio Station in Colorado Springs Kilo 94
I work on earthmoving equipment & caterpillar & John Deere use alot of metric bolts & nuts.
Yeah, it's actually non-industrial, non-professional, uneducated, people that don't use metric. Scientists, engineers, medical and military professionals, and global traders all use metric in the US.
@@zen1647 Military uses everything. I've used both standard and metric as a mechanic, though a lot of the newer equipment tries to push metric. I'm sure other industries such as engineers and traders will use a mix of both too. The two domains which seem truly dominated by metric are science and medicine.
Most STEM industries such as pharma use metric. We are taught in metric at University
Actually, many areas of commerce and industry use the metric system in the US; primarily the auto industry as it is global and the US military (for the most part outside of ship navigation) uses metric. Many US machine shops are becoming "metric only". This will continue to build over time. In fact, my local hardware store has just as many metric screw, nuts, and bolts as imperial. Thanks for the great video.
Americans also always use fixed showers.
I think most of science does too.
@@ilyatoporgilkaThe fuck is a fixed shower?
@@jiraffe9600 I think it's the kind of shower with a showerhead you can't adjust the position of.
@@ilyatoporgilka I don't have a fixed shower.
As a mid-century atavistic Canadian I use the following measures. Volume: Litres, gallons (US & Imperial), cups, quarts, fl ounces & dry ounces, grams kilograms, ton and tonne, millilitres, barrels, cubic feet and metres, yards, the tun, boxcar, 20 & 40 foot containers. Lengths: Metre, centimetre, millimetre, kilometre, mile, yard, foot, inch, furlong, rod, hand, span, fathom, cubit.
Now how to use some of these measures. Some of these are specific to my form. My thumb ~1 inch wide, foot ~0.75 feet, my little finger tip ~1 centimetre wide, sternum to fingertip just shy of a yard, fingertip to finger tip just shy of a fathom, fingertip to fingertip to far wrist=10 feet, 1 hand~6 inches, 1 mile ~ the distance that 20-20 eye sight can distinguish left truck headlights from right ones
Did you use 'chain' as a measurement in length? The chain (abbreviated ch) is a unit of length equal to 66 feet (22 yards), used in both the US customary and Imperial unit systems. It is subdivided into 100 links. There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile.
Some states in Australia still roods and perches when measuring land: A rectangle that is one furlong (i.e., 10 chains, or 40 rods) in length and one rod in width is one rood in area, as is any space comprising 40 perches (a perch being one square rod).
I did some consulting work for a steel distributor soon after I got out of school the second time with an accounting degree, originally having studied math and science and thus being fully used to the metric system. I was really surprised when the business was doing everything in pounds. The real kicker is that when they ordered from China, they had to order in 100 kg batches, so it was always of question of what multiple of 220 lb they were ordering.
Americans also always use fixed showers.
@@ilyatoporgilka “fixed showers”. The nozzle still rotates, just doesn’t disconnect from the wall for most showed. That is not the case for all showers, but most.
I actually have my grandmother's measuring cups from the Gerald R. Ford period and they have markings for cups but in the bottom each cup tells you how many cL it is. Pretty neat (also really good measuring cups).
“cl” is a measurement I only see nowadays on wine bottles.
A common way of measuring car fuel consumption in SI-using countries is litres per 100 km. Conveniently, you can reinterpret the numbers as cl/km without having to do any conversion.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 sometimes beer bottles as well, especially in Europe. 33 cL = 330 mL (i.e. the standard amount for a can or bottle of beer).
Wine bottles (and Scotch) are metric: 750 ml. This way, we Americans have no idea how much we're drinking and no need to feel guilty!
After graduating from a top engineering university and working on many engineering projects, the discussion of metric versus imperial is moot.
Ultimately anything of even moderately high level will be done by a computer. all measurements are unique non-whole numbers. And everything is calculated in base units.
So metric being easily divisible by 10, or having specific relations is a moot point as it is only a useful to help people who either are doing extremely low level math by hand (not even a calculator), or are very bad at math.
Thank you! The benefit just wouldn't be worth the massive cost of changing, even moreso nowadays.
@@divinecomedian2 not worth it at all
This aligns with my experience as an engineer in the US also. It's clear this argument is less about practicality in engineering than it is about politics and people's feelings about an aspect of what they consider to be American exceptionalism.
@@josephmagana6235 i agree with that sentiment. The argument against imperial units is usually one that is rooted in jealousy/hate of america, and not so much on the merit or use of the system itself.
Here in Australia we adopted the metric system in 1966. I was 17 at the time and used to the old pounds, shillings and pence, half-pennies, miles, yards, feet and inches. It didn’t take long to adjust but I would still convert kilometres to miles in my head to judge distances. I still sometimes do that today but don’t really need to as I “think”metric now. Visiting the US is funny for me, the currency is metric but everything else isn’t. Measuring a plank of wood at four feet, seven and five eights is just hilarious.
Your sly humor in presenting these subjects it's the best, love your content!
The thing that really gets me is that even the UK and US fluid ounces are different by about just over 1ml in one direction and 0.9ml in the other.
The ignorance in the modern world is off the charts. Imperial/traditional is not a set standard and here is the thing metric is not a set standard either.
Imperial is a system of fractions that perfectly align with calculus and geometry it is the reason why a clock is still based in 12 hour cycles or 24 hour cycles. It is the reason why the pyramids were built using such a fractional system and why electrical energy is modelled using a fractional system.
The scale of the inch is in relation to the human body, that is in relation to distance on earth and is the reason why ancient civilizations could survey site that were miles in length without using a long big of string.
@@bighands69 This is indeed correct. Decimal was never historically considered logical. It extends to 'real money' of 240d (old pence) to the £. This is base 12 with handy factors of 1,2,3,4,6,12 and handy fractions inbetween. Before calculators every one in a society using it could instinctively do all the necessary day to day calculations and more.
@@bighands69 Me thinks your British bias is off the charts! Science only uses the metric system for a very good reason, it's infinitely more practical than the IS, just ask any scientist, they'll confirm this.
This can't be right.
0.9ml are non existent in either nation!
US gallon is smaller then a UK gallon.
First off, great video series you have been making. I really enjoy how you breakdown these topics into easily digestible parts especially considering full grown adults have the same attention span as a gnat. Anyone who watches this should pause on the news articles and signs, they can be a great laugh. As an engineer in America, I really do hope we eventually move completely to one system or the other. Each one can be used to great affect (metric is easier, base 10 and all) but going back and forth between systems, on the same project, is torture. Just pick one system and stick to it! BZ, keep bringing us great videos!
The question shouldn’t be „why they didn’t do it“ rather should be „when do they update“
Just because you do not understand it you think we should. Well guess what? It works very well for us. Besides they say just to replace the road signs in the US would be a massive expense.
I don't actually think the US should update. What History Matters left out is it would likely be illegal to do what was required to convert to metric. In the case of the UK it wasn't enough to require all entities to use metric, you actually had to ban the sale of products that used Imperial units. In fact, I don't think there is a society which has metric, which had another functional system of measurement beforehand, that wasn't forced by law to use it. The reason it came to dominate Europe after all was because of French bayonets.
I was in school in the '70s and learned it. Then it mysteriously disappeared. There is, however, one stretch of highway in southern Arizona between Tucson and Nogales, Mexico that is still metric.
It's because right-wingers are too afraid of Mexico to ever use it, find out, and complain.
There was actually a campaign by the government in the 70s (led by Pres. Ford) to switch us to metric. Your school was probably part of this program. Pretty neat.
Ronald Reagan canceled the metrification program in the first year of his Presidency.
We should bomb it for being un-american lol
When the Delaware Route 1 Turnpike (since renamed the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway) opened in 1993, every highway sign that used a measurement (save for the speed limit signs) was in metric, up to and including the exits (as we were anticipating President Clinton signing legislation that would have metricized the entire US). Since then, the Delaware Dept. of Transportation (DelDOT) has replaced all but the exit numbers with US Customary units signs.
You freedom unit measurements are spot on. So many people get those wrong!
Seriously though, when I was in grade school in the 80s I remember learning both the 'American' and metric systems and being told that by the time we graduated high school that *everyone* would be using metric all the time.
The joke is that the people who want metric seem REALLY enthusiastic about it while everyone else just doesn't care. It's like the guy who always talks about how unhealthy your food is and you're just sitting there trying to enjoy your burger and coke.
Me too. I'm just glad it never happened. Now we just need to make regulatory changes that all fasteners in the US must be imperial, and we can do away with a whole set of useless wrenches!
@Justin •••
I was taught the same, also in the 80s.
Now we're stuck with two systems.
@@THall-vi8cp Would have been easier if they had just passed a law to only produce metric stuff from that point on.
@@THall-vi8cp It wouldn't be so bad except for the two systems are integrated into almost every vehicle manufactured.
As a person who grew up in the '70s, I had to learn both in elementary school. I can use both easily and can do a mental estimate when converting from one to another. So, I kind of feel lucky in a way.
Everyone is taught the metric system in Chemistry / Physics / most sciences lol
But you don’t teach those courses to third graders. Basic math, yes. JFC.
Americans also always use fixed showers.
Monke
@@vincedibona4687 We were taught both in elementary school at least as late as the 90s.
Metric is "Un-American"... a well reasoned argument.
That’s American patriotism for you, amusing and dumb in its own unique way.
its great especially when you work in a factory thats all in US units and are doing QC which is all mandated in Metric and your equipment is setup all in metric, you do a lot of conversions
Did your employer mention they include free brain exercise as part of the social package?
Ouch. That does suck.
I remember attending the 1977 National Scout Jamboree, where everything was metric... sort of. The temporary signs listed distances to various locations in km, so I actually got a feel for how far a kilometer is. But a recipe calling for 237ml of this or 454g of that is still using US units, only translated into metric.
Haha, I was there. Moraine State Park. And it did just that. Rained and Rained. Fun time though. I still have my patch collection. Thanks for the memory!!
Yes, good ol' "More Rain" State Park!
@@kirkwilson5905 1973 was the only year BSA held two Jamborees, one at Moraine and one at Farragut State Park, Idaho. I was from the Midwest and went with our council's Western contingent to Idaho. We never got a drop of rain the entire time. Later met some Scouts who went to PA and they too had some showers. I don't know why they didn't just make Idaho the permanent site.
I visited the WSJ for a couple of days in Sweden in 2011. Didn't rain then.
454 g = 1 lb. 237 mL is an oddball as 250 mL is a cup.
The US does make use of many metric units, and "metric" countries like Canada still make use of imperial units in many areas (such as in the construction industry).
I appreciate the information and education, and the videos always make me chuckle. I love the Easter eggs in the newspapers and elsewhere.
Most often easy explanations are wrong or incomplete, but in this case the explanation "America doesn't use the metric system because they think they are better than everybody else" is really quite accurate.
Exactly (and they’re not exactly wrong either)
It’s still used in some places. In Puerto Rico, roads are measured in kilometers and gas is sold by the liter
Yea but tbh in the eyes of most Puerto Rico is a seperate nation within a nation (same way it works for say england and the UK or Bonaire in the Kingdom of the Netherlands)
1:34 “Nerds Told No”
That killed me 💀
History Matters, I read the whole newspaper. In fact, I pause all of your videos to read the little notes everywhere. They're always amazing and worth the price of admission.
2:00 teddy popping out was pure gold.
I love the little details you put in that not everyone might notice. Your extra efforts are much appreciated and make me laugh! "metric = cannibalism!"
The "2 banjos = 1 bigfoot" at the end really struck a chord with me. The whole "freedom unit" chart is bonkers, but at the same time when listening to a politician or watching the news in the U.S., this is pretty much same brand of logic used to explain whichever war we are currently having.
It doesn't really make sense or is even logical, but an authority figure explained it out on national TV and our job as the governed is to agree and pretend to understand. Otherwise appear foolish or unpatriotic.
There’s also the part where an American is surprised that Austria exists
I love these videos. I've been a massive fan for years! So much so that I actually made my own channel (it focuses on History as well) thank you for the inspiration!
"Massive Fan" ! Perhaps a diet might be in order ????
@@sandybarbee8401 haha!! That made me laugh
@@knightofhistory Glad you took it it in the right spirit and got a chuckle from it . Nothing , "dark" intended .
@@sandybarbee8401 Word . Word , word .
I also remember the “big conversion” movement to Metric in the 1970s. It was supposed to happen in conjunction with the World’s Fair scheduled for Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville had already converted all the traffic signs for speed limits and distance to Metric from Imperial. Banks, etc., that had electronic signs flashing the time and temperature were converting to Celsius.
And, of course, the bottom fell out. Knoxville was stuck with Metric to change back for the Fair while the rest of Tennessee and the U.S. stayed on Imperial.
One thing I think is overlooked about later attempts at converting to the metric system is how our roads, addresses, and 911 system are so heavily laid out in, and dependent upon, miles. I like it better for weight and small measurements, but if we ever do adopt it, some kind of dual hybrid system might be in order, since our isolationist predecessors had to go and lay out so many areas in one mile grids (adjusting for topography and property rights) with addresses that double as 911 coordinates (imperfect though they may be, they're still helpful, especially in rural areas), measured in miles from each county seat.
Every place that converted from Imperial to Metric faced the same issues, especially here in Canada. We figured it. You can too.
I feel like people are going to get weirdly toxic over this
As is usual on this topic
Non-Americans get their panties in a bunch when we don't do something they do
Your videos are gold!
0,5 History Matters video = 1 education
I was giggling all along, but I laughed so hard at the Freedom Units 2:57 that I almost had to lie down. What a succinct and hilarious skewering of American Exceptionalism.
50 burns = 1 History Matters video.
Gave you a thumbs up, and *then* noticed your name. :D
I love British humor! At 0:37 “but given they were you know....busy” 😂😂😂
As someone from New Jersey, I love the "New Jersey Tabloid" telling the nerds that we won't be using the metric system! In reality, everyone understands the metric system because it's used for many things. We just like our own system better for ordinary day-to-day things.
I think this might be the channel's funniest video yet. The jokes are generally good, but i think they were more on point that usual on this one
The newspaper at 1:39 is comedy gold, I love this guy's humor
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Start strong and keep 'em coming. So many smiles in this one. Awesome, sir.
1:40 I LOVE that news paper
Your username is cool
It makes more sense that our weird mix of both imperial and metric here in the UK. Most countries seem to adopt one unit of measurement, we seem to straddle both. Like, we buy fuel in litres, but measure economy by MPG and use miles on the road.
For all you non Americans out there if and when we have confused looks on our faces when you say something is say 5 meters long help us out and just say 15 washing machines or 2 trucks. We'll get it quickly and thank you for it. Same with kilos.
Love,
Yankee
I once heard an eight year old ask, "Why do we have to learn about the metric system in school?"
"Lots of reasons. For one, we're practically the only country left in the world that doesn't use it."
"So why can't every other country just go back to the old way?"
Based kid
I always enjoy when these drop, and I have started more and more to stop view each one again so I can go through and pick up all the easter eggs packed in there, but today's video really made me laugh.
1. Look at all of the text on the newspaper. It is hilarious and incredibly sarcastic.
2. Look at Reagan's hair. It has a gloss from the hair conditioner greasy stuff he used.
3. Always, always look for postscripts on notes and letters.
More?
This one was a particularly good one.
Definitely have a second look at the various abbreviations around 2:03
@@johnxu2001 No, but they spell DOU CHE BAG
@@ernestvanophuizen461 the video could have paid homage to a particular American industrialist if the “SLT” instead said “EAT”, given what’s to its left 🐅
When I was in school, the metric system seemed so obviously better that I couldn't comprehend why the US didn't switch over. At the time I was taking classes in physics and chemistry where shifting scale or of translating from volume as cubic to a natural unit of volume were things I had to do all the time, and it was SO much easier in metric. But then I graduated school and wasn't doing much scientific measurement after all. And in day to day life, how often do you have to convert from miles to inches or from cubic inches to gallons? Answer: almost never. In my daily life now, there's no obvious advantage to metric. So switching over would just be a pain, and like many, I don't see it as worth the trouble.
Metric is why the rest of the world is so far behind us. We build more single family homes in the USA than the rest of the world combined manages to. That's how far behind us they really are. No one on our job sites uses metric anything. It's all standard. I hear there are foreign tradies that use standard too. The ones that actually manage to get something done.
I always liked the questions like: " If a train travelled east at 100 kilometers an hour than stopped after an hour and travelled back west at 50 miles an hour, what time would it be in Paducah ( assuming they were using Military Time)...that , my boy, is a mighty big If....
Fun fact: Today the imperial system is defined using the metric system.
Funner fact: that happened in 1893.
i'm terrible in math so when i started to learn carpentry i had a very difficult time seeing and understanding what i was seeing on a tape measure .
eventually i saw the fractions as visual size differences and could easily navigate the tape layout but this took a longtime .
Then later in my life i moved to europe and was working on the house i helped build . i went to buy a tape measure and immediately panicked thinking i would never be able to figure this out. But after about ten minutes, i realized everything was in
multiples of ten and it's been easy ever since .
Let's be real there's only one reason we won't change, "fuck it, we're used to it and it works perfectly fine for us so what's the point"
And i agree
In the 90s, back when you could still work on your own car, they started mixing different parts with imperial bolts and metric so your car would have both, this was my 92 jeep wrangler, and for some reason it had two huge star bolts holding in the starter, always lost the damn star socket and had to go buy a new one a couple times.
Yeah I had an 04 supercharged montecarlo and I had to change the lower intake gaskets. everything was metric (mostly 10mm) till I got the intake bolts which were 3/8".
anything bigger than 1/2" you can use the closest metric socket on, no problem. It goes the other way too, anything bigger than 12 or 13 mm, there's an inch socket that'll fit.
I once saw a highway sign that said, "All metric signs / Next 50 miles". Apparently the all-metric signs didn't start with that one.
I am American and we use metric all the time. The universal large soft drink size in US grocery stores is the liter.
It is a conspiracy by the tool manufacturers. You need metric AND standard tool sets.
(BTW, medications in the U.S. are in milligrams.)
Yeah the metric measurements are on everything almost except for gas I've noticed. I just bought a socket wrench set and everything in the set is duplicated there's a metric side and Imperial side. At this point sooner we get off of the Imperial measurements the better it's just another way for people to double sell us things that we shouldn't need
@@angelainamarie9656 as an American, even though I'm accustomed to the US system simply because I grew up in America, I very much *prefer* the Metric system because it mainly deals with *decimals* instead of crazy-ass *fractions* , and thus cuts a *lot* of unnecessary difficulty outta math.
I was in 7th grade when we started learning the metric system. Now I'm 60. There is a very simple answer as to which is the best system. Name all the possible wrench size between 1/4" and 1" and how many table spoons in a cup, do it fast. Now can you count from 1 to 10, how fast was that? Why does water boil at 212F and freezes at 32F when its easier to remember 100C and 0C. I was a jeweler for many years, gold chains are 6mm wide and 18' long why combine the 2? Metric system wins every time, its the easy system, prove me wrong!
As an American, it’s interesting to hear the summary out this way. I’ve always been told that 1) The main reason we didn’t change to metric is that industrial tycoons already had their machines designed for the old system and advocated to not spend the money on change, and 2) at this point we really DO use the metric system in almost every way behind-the-scenes, but we just convert to the old system at the point goods face consumers because that’s the system they’re still the most familiar with.
At WRT #2 you're not wrong, since legally all US customary units of measure are defined in metric. Was passed in the 80s, I think, which make me think it was just Reagan's way of dealing with the legit reasons for metric.
Liquor, wine and medicine are all sold in metric units.
I perfectly understood his freedom units of measurement he put at the end
There is a stretch of freeway that is south of Tucson, Arizona that is in metric. Must have been a trial or something
I guess it didn't... make it very far
@@divinecomedian2 Boom boom.
As someone who learned the metric system in school I think I figured out the problem. Growing up with the empirical system we intuitively just understood what those measurements mean. Learning the metric system was all about learning to convert everything mathematically. The focus was the math and not the understanding of what a metric measurement was in terms of just knowing the measurement in relationship. No one wants to go around in life doing math equations for everything. We just want to understand the measurement in a general relative way. I grew up in the 70s 80s, calculators and the internet were obviously not a thing yet making it that much more laborious.
But there is like no math though, it’s just moving the decimal place over.
You just have to know how much is an litre, centimetre, kilogram and it is all natural. Especially when you realise that one litre of water weights one kilogram and can by contained in 10x10x10 cm cube container you have ideal point of reference.
No, you just too old to change and have been conditioned through your whole life to look at world in terms of body parts and football fields.
Tell me how much in miles is 7864 ft? I will tell you that 7864 meters are 7.864 kilometers.
There are actually two other countries that use the Imperial System/American Customary Measurement: Liberia and Myanmar. Liberia uses it because it was established by the US and emulated it a lot, while for Myanmar... I actually don't know.
Myanmar was Burma so British empire.
3 progressive countries makes US look a little regressive
Nasa got their grounding in rocketry off kidnapped rocket scientists from Germany after ww2 and also reneged on an info share with the uk , the boy in class taking credit in exams by cheating
I remember being quite surprised by this, as a kid. Growing up in the reluctant-to-change-to-metric UK, I knew that Americans spelled "colour" as "color" and called the second floor of the building the "second floor", etc. - it seemed like a culture of using the easier variant that didn't have leftover bits of old-fashioned complications. So, using the measurements that are broken down the same way as numbers - get to ten then start again - rather than the old-fashioned complications (12 of those, then three of those, then 1760 of them) would be what they'd do.
My UK parents grew up being taught imperial for the most part in the 1950s and 60s. They still know about all the conversion rates and pre-decimal currency is still natural to them when to me it all seems like some ancient Victorian methods of doing measurement and currency.
I was a young kid when Australia went metric. It wasn't so hard. I would say even a kid could adjust 😉
I switched my phone, house thermostat, fridge, and car to celsius, and *within a week* I had a rough intuitive sense of celsius - no math conversions needed. It's pretty easy. If you try to do conversions, your brain will reject all intuition.
I mean kids generally are more easier to change things as their brain are still mouldable and experience are pretty much none.
@@eurasiaacaci.-110 I'm pretty old, and even my old brain quickly adapted to metric once I switched. It's a lot easier than people naturally fear it is.
Metric is less error prone
It's less error prone because everything is just a scale, they is no overlaying involved which is where the errors creep in
12 inches is 1 foot which is 1/3 of a yard, so you now have 3 different numbers to represent a measurement depending on scale.
That's 3 different places where errors could creep in 12, 1, or 1/3 and 3 different places for the scale, inches ", feet ' (which is very close to " as a symbol) and yard yd. That's 6 places where errors could creep in.
It's only experience that catches a scaling factor error
In metric, the same could be represented as 30 cm or 300 mm or 0.3 m, the number 3 is consistent. That's 1 place for an error and another for the 0's.
The units are mm, cm, m and while they are similar with only a character difference between them, they are far less likely to be misrepresented than ' and ".
Again experience catches an error in scale in both systems.
This is why metric is less error prone because there is no number change to represent different scaling, it's just the same number, 3 in my example
Imperials fundamental reason why it's numbers change is because it's trying to fit 12 units of something using 10 digits, hence why the number representation changes because we don't use symbols like A for 11 and B for 12, except in hexadecimal
What the world really needs is to now complete the conversion to metric, and change the units of time to be metric rather than base 12. The amount of work computers go to, to try and makes time easily readable by humans is a waste
We need to also do what the Japanese do with sgoe sizing, just use cm, not the stupid systems we use now that are different in different countries!
Good luck with that 😂 if you know both systems it's not hard at all to know both systems. Perhaps your next idea is that the entire world should only speak English because that would make communication better. You know less errors that way 🤦🏻♂️
I prefer the use of the foot as opposed to the meter due to nice divisibility.
10 is divisible by 1,2,5,10
where as
12 is divisible by 1,2,3,4,6,12.
You can have a half, third, and quarter as a number that does not repeat infinitely after the decimal point.
In fact 12 is the smallest number divisible by 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is why we use 12 hours intervals for time. Also, the smallest number divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, which also gives 6 for free due to 2 and 3, is 60, the other major number used in time. To have divisibility up to 7 requires 420 which is too big to be practical.
😂😂😂
While I understand this argument, it’s quite irrelevant when put up against decimal points. If you are getting into multiple degrees of accuracy such as a 12th of an inch, you might as well just use metric and go down to three decimal places. It’s much cleaner and intuitive than constantly comparing fractions, and memorizing/doing the math to figure out which ones are bigger or smaller.
@@lyricpants4279 US Customary is based on duodecimal so it is twice as good as decimal is. It's duo! But you do have to be a polymath genius to appreciate it. Unfortunately not everyone is.
@@tjm2218 I don't have a problem with the math. I'm not doing physics. I can't think of anything a physicist has done for me lately either. Sometimes it is helpful to come to conclusions the hard way. Good to exercise the mind, you know? Some mental gymnastics keeps one limber. Perhaps physicists should try it more often? Maybe then they'd be more impressive individuals.
@@lyricpants4279 In truth, I was not arguing for anything. I merely stated a personal preference. As a mathematician, I have a particular fondness for highly divisible numbers, the anti-primes.
I did 6 years Army. Never really thought about how I measure civilian ammo in American units but military grade ammo in metric. Or I’ll plot out points in meters for maneuver or running but then switch to Miles Per Gallon. Intrinsically I know both, but I still find myself preferring American for some things and Metric for others.
A caveat I forgot to mention. I lived in Latin America for 3 years, and I think it influences my use of Miles Per Hour to Kph. Fucking 30 kilometers on an Interstate!? Colombia you got me fucked up.