0:00 Why Doesn’t the United States Use the Metric System? 20:55 Why Does the Sound of Fingernails on a Chalkboard or Scraping a Plate Make Us Cringe? 35:09 Why Do We Have Moles All Over Our Bodies and What Do They Do? 42:55 Why Doesn’t the Heart Get Tired and Need to Rest Like Other Muscles? 54:25 Why Do Some People Think the Human Soul Weighs 21 Grams? 1:06:14 Why Do the Eyes in Some Paintings Follow You Around the Room? 1:11:17 Why Does Soda Taste Significantly Better When Carbonated vs. Flat? 1:14:01 Why Do We Get Allergies? 1:27:33 Why You Sometimes Get a Lump in the Back of Your Throat When Sad and Why We Cry 1:32:44 Why Coffee Makes You Poop 1:40:14 Why Can’t People Smell Themselves?
As a kid in the UK just after metrification, I remember a beautiful illustration in a conversation between my Dad and the staff: "25 yards of hosepipe please." "Sorry, sir, we're metric now." "Oh, 25 metres then." "Certainly sir, 3/4 or 1/2 inch?"
I live in Canada, which is metric. But I’m 6’4 and weigh 240 LBS. our road signs are metric but our houses are built standard. I can switch between the two quite easily. The Fahrenheit and Celsius thing is different.
I'm American, but have Celsius down from listening to Canadian Public Radio for a long time. 😂 I use a mix of both dammed near every day. I Really don't get the hate.
Yeah, I thought you guys up there were exclusively metric and was surprised to hear all the familiar "freedom units" thrown around, when I got there. Distance and speed took a minute to get used to, but not too bad.
An added cost to a metric conversion on interstate highways is that every mile on the roads has a mile marker with whatever mile on that road numbered. Between those mile markers are nine more posts with a simple white reflector. These designate a tenth of a mile. The number of people today who even know this, or who even know what those reflectors represent is shrinking fast. However, it is still a valid measuring device since it is simple and needs no electricity to use.
@@Libertaro-i2uThere's no need to convert a system that has been in use for years, particularly when in large parts of the U.S. the road system is gridded off in miles.
If your car breaks down or you accidentally drive off the road into the woods, it’d be good to know about what mile marker you passed last. Same for directing emergency vehicles. Personally I’d leave this in place. The cost to survey and replace millions of signs and reflectors would be incredible
The funny thing about metric in the US is that we *do* use it. The US officially adopted the metric system in the 1970s, it's why when you buy anything you see both imperial and metric measurements on the side. They just didn't mandate its use.
we have tried to switch over, but inevitably a politician gets the idea he'll lose votes if we do, or some company that bribes him decides they'll lose money. it's the same dumb reason why we can't get away from daylight savings.
The US tries to use an international standard. Conversion between the Imperial system and the metric system is explained in plain terms like how many std. African elephants you need to fill and Olympic swimmingpool - then everyone knows exactly the measurements. At other times it's the international grapefruit or the basketball used as reference for size. All giving a reference within a cats whisker give or take a cat.
NASA then went on to lose the Mars Climate Orbiter because they (JPL) used metric while Lockheed Martin used imperial. Literally burning up $193M of NASA’s budget in today’s money.
Ehm, it was lost because Lockheed Martin staff did not follow instructions and contracts. All NASA stuff is metric afaik and has been so for a long time. Mostly because of it being 10 base but also because of international cooperation - the world uses metric, science uses metric, etc.
Main reason we dont change to metric? For general daily use there just is no reason as long as people understand the units in use and they do. For stem or other fields that need more precision we do use metric already so the US uses both. Metric for specific purposes and Imperial for daily life.
Exactly. Either way, it's an arbitrary system. Just pick one and stick with it. I really don't care what France or Germany uses. And many countries, like Canada or the UK, use idiosyncratic hybrid systems with several different units of measurement, depending on what it is.
@bsmithhammer that... that was my point. OP said, for industry like STEM, where more precision is needed, the US uses metric... Aerospace utilizes US Customary, and Aerospace requires precision...
Lol, the US uses both. Imperial is more common. But both imperial and metric are used in a variety of everyday situations here. Calling it stupid is the pot calling the kettle black.
@@Dreckmal01 I use liters to measure liquids all the time. You will not be able graduate high school in the USA if you don’t understand the metrics system because we have to learn physics and chemistry. Nobody does physics with foot-pounds when there are Newton-meters
Over here a "quarterpounder" is 125 grams, as a metric pound is 500 grams. On a side note, when Germany metricized, some "intermediary units" were metric feet and inches, that relate to the metre the same way their imperial counterparts relate to the yard. They were discarded in less than a decade, as decimal subunits are easier to work with.
The U.S. uses both the metric system and our own units (which are defined in S.I. terms), so we are effectively bilingual. When my European collogues ask why, I ask them why the E.U. doesn't mandate a single common language and outlaw the rest.
No need for change. Science is already done in metric here in US. I do structural design in ft inch an 16th inches and forces in lbs. Not hard, you just use decimal ft and convert the output to when needed. I like our system. All our building plans would need to be redone and would have lots of odd measurements. Like it or no people like whole numbers and the English units sizes work well for things like building.
I wish the U.S. had Officially Switched to the Metric System when I was younger. I’m 81 and I can do the conversion without too much effort, but it’s a pain in the Ass to have to do it. I don’t automatically start measuring my working out @ the gym and walking in metric units. My new Pick Up has the capability to switch freely between Cheeseburgers X Eagles to Metric, so I’m covered, which ever way it goes. In any case, whether I’m accelerating 0 to 60(62) miles per hour or 0 to 100 kilometers per hour IT’S REALLY QUICK! Waaay more fun to drive than the Old School 4X4 it is replacing. But if we get some snow this winter and I need to pull some people out I’ll probably take the GMC. Because I’m familiar with it (and I don’t want to get my new one dirty!)
I've had people mention that I am the only person they know that uses a yard on a regular basis. They had an aaaaahhhh moment when I told them that that was because it is easier for me to convert meters to yards than it is to feet.
Golf, Football (not Fútboʻll), and shooting sports are measured in Yards. But a yard and a meter are close enough you can more or less say the other anyway.
At the outbreak of WWII, we had an opportunity to change over to the metric system with the production of war materials. The only thing that stood in the way was the nationalistic ferver that was abounding at the time. The ego is difficult to logic away. "Our system is better".
I'm an American who was not taught metric in school, one who is not in fabrication, engineering, science, or construction, and as such had no real reason to learn it. I've still learned to become somewhat bilingual in both metric and imperial units, including volume, temperature, distance/speed, and weight. given that my speedometer shows both M/H AND KM/H, products give weight in pounds/ounces and KG/G, volume in gallons/fl. oz. and L/ML, and size in Feet/inches and M/CM/MM, and that it was fairly simple to find a weather app that allows you to show both F and C. We have no real excuse. I'm BARELY what I would consider "average" in intelligence, so being "average" is not an excuse either.
The actual average American though would have written this long paragraph with 3+ obivious grammatical errors with missing or wrong punctuation. So sir, I do think you are above average.
@@TonyZEHS quillbot is amazing, i can't take credit for the well formed grammar and spelling XD an absolute life saver for machine translation too, while not as good as deepl for that, it supports Filipino for translating my in-laws if they don't know how to say something in English, whereas deepl doesn't.
It sounds like Simon is saying the American public are the stumbling block to the metric conversion. I'm a 66 year old American and I learned metric in grade school. We were told that everything would be metric by the time we grew up. I never understood why it didn't change but I don't remember being asked if I wanted to change. My answer would have been, "Absolutely!" I don't think the general public can be blamed for the lack of this change. If anyone knows differently, please enlighten me.
I was born in 1970, and I grew up learning both systems. I’m pretty comfortable with units that are small enough for me to put into context. Anything bigger than the equivalent of a football field or a ten gallon bucket or three hundred pounds (in either system), and I have trouble personally picturing it. I can use bigger units, of course. I just can’t automatically picture how big an acre, a mile, or a kilometer are. The only stuff that won’t seem to stick in my head is when people measure temperature in Celsius / Centigrade. Boiling point, freezing point, and (roughly) body temperature are the only parts I know. That’s probably because I almost never hear anybody around me using degrees C.
Hi, David. I am just a couple years younger than you with a similar story. My life took me into mechanical engineering and mostly I design parts to fit existing European manufacture machinery so I am by necessity well versed in metric mechanical design. Of course, I can also design to American standard. (Which is ironic since one of the arguments is how "dumb" Americans cannot understand the metric system; in fact, we are the opposite of "dumb" since so many of us can go back and forth between the two systems, no problem. Sort of a parallel to being "bi-lingual".) The USA is in fact a "metric" country by government decree (as Simon pointed out), but the government does NOT mandate that metric MUST be used. It is at our own discretion. "If anyone knows differently, please enlighten me." So I have long believed that the USA has not converted wholeheartedly to metric because.... for lack of better wording..... Why should we? By that I mean, what benefit would it bring to our daily lives? It is a pretty easy argument to say that our current logistical system of moving goods and commodities around the country is the envy of the world. Our trucking, rail, shipping industries are refined to the highest efficiency in the world. And, as a mechanical engineer, I believe this can be credited to the lowly Standard Pallet. 40" x 48" is the critical dimension. Many products are designed so as to fit efficiently so many pieces to match the footprint of the 40 x 48. Trailers are designed to fit so many 40 x 48 pallets efficiently. Forklifts and pallet jacks are designed to move 40 x 48's around efficiently. Etc., etc., etc. This is the way its been for over 100 years and thus the US logistical network has grown to be the biggest, best, and most efficient in the world. So what if we were to convert to metric? One of two things must happen. Either 1) we change the standard pallet to 1 m x 1.2 m, or 2) We keep the 40 x 48, but instead start calling it the "1016 mm by 1219 mm". So which would it be? If # 1), that means everything changes. New truck trailers will be built to different dimensions to fit the new standard sizes (which means they won't fit old, existing pallets efficiently anymore during their remaining life). The old trailers will still be around for another 20, 30, 40 years, so they will not efficiently fit the new standard pallets ever. Or if we go with # 2), what is the point? The pallets would literally stay at the efficient 40" x 48" measurement that has served us well for a hundred years, but now we are gonna call it 1016 x 1219? What advantage is that? Of course, the answer is absolutely none. So the world can try to make the US a pariah for not using metric all they want, but the fact is that logistically, it would be a step backward for the US to start using metric numbers as our standard. There are potentially huge costs with little to no real benefits in doing so.
Canada uses an interesting combination of metric and SI units (called Imperial units here). For instance, butter is sold in 454 gram blocks -- not coincidentally, 454 grams is one pound. Some things are labelled in metric (at least, the largest number is metric, though both may be shown), and can be asked for in either kind of units -- for instance, fabric and lumber, which can easily be bought by the yard or the foot. Staff are trained to used conversion tables, or software may be able to make the conversion. A quart, confusingly, can be either the Imperial or US size, Imperial being the larger unit, 1.1365225 versus 0.945352 litres.
Not mentioned are the vast number of various US documents that are in Imperial measurement (i.e., cook books, legal documents, building specs, contracts). Most of which pre-date the Internet and almost all would have to be modified. This alone creates an enormous incentive to stay with Imperial even if metric is objectively better.
If you are old enough, you remember the failed rollout of the metric system in the US. You would remember the dual speed signs (both metric and englis) on the highways. My opinion for why it failed is because the rollout was backward. The us would teach the old units in grade school and wait to high school to teach the metric system. Teach the number of inches in a meter instead of teaching the door knob is about a meter off the floor to first graders. If everyone leaving grade school knew metric first than in a single generation, it would have changed.
I was in grade school in the 1980's and I remember teachers telling us we had to learn the metric system because "someday it will be the main system of measure" in this country. Well that day never came and we all knew it 😂
@100percentSNAFU I will remember that when I buy me 2 liter Pepsi and pick up my 14mm wrinch while working on my car. I'm old enough to remember when the US tried and failed to convert to the metric system. Was there another country that tried and failed to convert to metric? Nothing to brag about.🤣
I love these 'catch-up episodes' of the combination of TIFO episodes. I don't have to go chase down a bunch of episodes on my own, just BAM, a dozen or more episodes all at once!
Being originally from the land of guns, freedom and driving on the "right" side of the road...I've been living in Japan for over 10 years and still have to do a rough translation to Liberty units. 😅
It's very difficult to change a system that people are used to. Only think why we don't just have decimal time units, say, 100 hour days, and an hour divided in 100 minutes. We still use the Assyrian/Babylonian system that counts to 12 using one hand and up to 60 using two hands.
@100percentSNAFU : Imagine how profound the changes would be if a decimal time would be adopted, although in principle that would be a simplification...
@@JamesDavy2009 These are great points we're both not making, beside a decimal point is like an 's' at the end of math, it's just not really needed, much like a period in exchange for a comma , as long as you're willing to sacrifice a little grammar, it works fine, over
A lot, maybe most, speed limit signs don't have units. Just think of all the fun and games when "Speed Limit 60" signs are changed to "Speed Limit 100”.
That's a good point. I don't think I have ever seen a speed limit sign in the U.S. that actually denotes "MPH". However every speed limit sign I have seen in Canada does show km/h.
Living in the farmbelt of the US, I have always joked about why we haven't gone metric: You know how much it would cost, let alone the work that would have to be put in to dig up every mile section of roads and lay them back down in kilometer distances?
Here in Oklahoma most people don't realize it but the slow conversion has begun on the Highways. New highway projects have started adding anywhere from .2 to .5 mile markers when the work is being done. rude but the first step.
Being a European automotive tech, I only think in metric. But can’t seem to change my brain when in comes MPH, temperature or weights. Anything larger than than 40mm , my brain switches to imperial.
Being an American automotive tech, I feel this comment completely. Basically every nut and bolt, socket and wrench I can convert readily. KPH, Celsius, and KM and my brain shuts down to the level of a toddler lol. I made a serious attempt years ago with a Honda Prelude I had, with the electroluminescent dash. I was able to switch the digital readout to KPH and KMs instead of MPH and miles when I tell you it was expensive, I’m not joking. I came close to losing my license over all the tickets I racked up for either driving way under the speed limit, or over estimating the conversion and driving much faster than I should have been. 😅
@O5IR15 my first duty station was Ft. Drum New York, and I spent a lot of time in Canada back then. A Canuk taught me a simple conversion. Take the speed, let's say 25mph. Split it in half, 12.5mph and add them together. 37.5mph. Now add 10% so, 2.5mph, and that gives you 40kph. For 60mph, add 30 = 90kph, and another 10%, 6.0 equals 96kph.
20 years ago, I lived in the UK for a couple of years and was a little surprised that Imperial units were still used particularly on road signs. One more wrinkle is the fact that the British Imperial units while having the same names as their American statute cousins are not the same. The British mile is the same as a US statute mile, but the gallon in 20 percent larger than the US gallon.
Yes older Canadians remember the days when American companies would slap "gallon" on a product that was 20% short and fool people. Now everything is labelled in litres so we can more easily detect that fraud. (I saw it a few months ago.)
@@JPMadden A pint as defined in the United States is 16 ounces. A British pint is 18.7 American ounces. If alcohol bottled in Britain is portioned in British pints and sold for export, that may explain the 18.7 ounce number.
@@dmac7128 A British gallon is 25% (not 20% [EDIT: It is 20% because the ounces are different sizes]) larger than the American gallon of 128 ounces. This makes a British gallon 160 ounces and a pint 20, right? Then why 18.7 ounces?
Not quite true A nautical mile is one minute of the earth’s circumference A knot is travelling one of these per hour Nothing to do with either feet or meters
@@marcoriviera06While I don't argue that this isn't true, wouldn't it however make a nautical mile smaller towards the poles and greater near the equator when traveling east to west or west to east?
Measured at the equator And you can define it in big Macs or bananas, the only issue is making everyone else agree with you to use the same definition.@@100percentSNAFU
@1:03:10 Many modern hospital beds do include scales. When I was classified non-weight bearing, that is how the nurses got my weight every few days for their records. It would just take keeping the scale on and connected to some kind of monitoring.
Dis you know, when you drive through the US Google maps will switch before a turn from 0.1 Miles to 500 feet. This feels very confusing to foreigners that you suddenly have to recalculate if you live in a base 10 system in your brain
I'm of the old adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In my chosen line of work, nursing, I only used the metric system mainly in calculating liquids and weights. In my home life, I find it way easier to use the American usage of pounds, feet, inches, yards, gallons, quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc. So I say, leave things the way they are. The world is confusing enough without adding the metric system to take the place of what is what we are used too.
As an American I buy 2 liter bottles, medicine dosed in mcg/mg, ammunition in x-mm, physical medical exams in cm, kg, etc. The metric system is definitely present in everyday life, which makes it harder having to know both measurement systems.
We use both. Most of us use certain units because it flows better in conversation. If I live 4 miles away, I GET what that is. Where the h3ll is 6.437376 Km supposed to be?
You would just say, "I live about 6 and half kilometers away." Also, the "mile" you speak of is technically called a "statute mile." There are also nautical miles which are a bit longer than statute miles but are used in maritime and aviation for measuring distance. (1 nautical mile is exactly 6,000 feet. So, if a ship is traveling at a speed of 10 knots, it is traveling at a rate of 60,000 feet per hour.) And arguably, one can only join the "mile high club" if they do the deed at an altitude of at least 6,000 feet. 😆
I switched over to metric for the hardware that I use for my Hobby projects about 10 years ago. At that time it was almost impossible to buy a metric twist drill set from retail sources her in the US. I just checked Amazon and there are many metric drill sets available now. I know it’s a small thing, but it is an indicator.
Metric & road signs: produce adhesive (plastic film extra strong adhesive) labels that are simply placed over existing ones. For direction signs with distance, simply place adhesive label only over the distance. Cost of mass produced labels = a few cents. Installation = wiping clean old sign and applying new = 10 minutes. Then when a sign needs replacing due to old age or damage, you install a fresh metric sign. Basically, where there's a will there's a way...
So I'm from the US. I get how the metric system is easier and more intuitive to use and that it makes more sense, but I (and I realize this is likely just because I've always used US customary units) don't like the units. Centimeters are too short. Meters are too long, kilometers are too short, kilograms are too heavy and celsius degrees are too big. If you tell me you're 182.88cm tall, that's so hard for me to conceptualize, but if you say you're six feet, ok, I get that. Measurement units can get stupid though. I reload ammunition. If you're not from a place where folks have easy legal access to firearms, that means that I make my own ammunition using shell casings from rounds that have already been fired and using special tools to resize them, remove the spent primer, install a new primer, add new gunpowder and a new bullet. To do this, I have to work with caliber (100ths of an inch) and millimeters to measure the diameter of a bullet depending on the type and grains (.0648 grams) to measure the weight of bullets and amounts of powder. It's stupid.🤣
@@olovlundstedt507But 183 cm is 1/254 feet too tall! We can all visualize how wrong that is. As for the person who wonders wtf one thousandth of a yard is, it is 1mm for day to day purposes and I can easily visualize it.
I did the math to come up with danny devito speed per hour taking account for age, weight, flexibility, stride length, stride cadence. All bc i refuse to use kph, danny devito is also used as a measuring distance
I never went to university so when I got a job in the bio-medical field as a Biomedical Engineer I had to teach my self the metric system. Was not hard to learn. I worked developing the i-STAT blood analyzer at Abbott Point of care.
For example when automotive repairmen work on foreign cars they need to know the metric system and have the proper tools. companies who build houses not so much. It depends on the circumstance or what a person does for a living. When I measure out my insulin for my injection, it’s cc’s. Or units. Most people are pretty flexible if they have to be.
I wonder if one of the reasons the baby's laugh and the baby's cry are both pleasant and unpleasant respectively has anything to do with our own brains remembering deep down our joy from laughing and our anguish from crying as baby's ourselves.
I did not see it mentioned but one benefit to the US system of distance measurement is that it is easier to measure things when you don't have anything to measure with. A foot is roughly the size of the average persons actual foot so we can get rough distances very easily just by pacing them out heel to toe. A yard is roughly the average persons stride so longer distances can be measured by counting steps. An inch is roughly the distance from the base of you thumb to your fingernail. That said, as a 3D designer here in the US I greatly prefer to use the metric system and if someone gives me specifications in inches/feet then the first thing I do is convert to metric. It is far easier to determine what half of 2.778mm is than half of 7/64 inches.
The nails on a chalk board noise isn't a fight or flight response for me. It's more like an intense ASMR response. Like tingles all over but intense and almost painful. Not fight or flight though, at least for me.
I work with both, on the regular, and metric is much easier to use. However, it would take me a while to get used to integrating it in the rest of my daily life. I'm on board with phasing it in.
I worked in precision manufacturing until 2008, and the inch system was used, although sometimes I would get an engineering blueprint that used the metric system and printed the measurements in millimeters, so I converted the dimensions to inch that my measuring tools designed for. One CNC machine was bought that used the metric system for measurement calculations. I had to convert the millimeters to inch by dividing them by 25.4 and input all the changes needed in the machine's instruction manual. One company moved to Mexico and another that I worked for shut down its manufacturing to have it done for them in Korea, China, and India. Wouldn't it be ironic if the US started manufacturing anything again besides cars and trucks and had to switch to metric? My guess is that the automotive sector here is using all metric measurement.
@ 42:00 I used to tan until the light bulb 💡 went on and I realized sunlight is "Solar Radiation"☢ it turns plastic into dust in a few years. Now I cover my arms bicycle riding.
Of course the metric system is so much simpler than 12’s… said nobody ever looking at a 315/75r15 tire trying to figure out the actual dimensions of it.
In your case 315 is millimeter of tires witht, 75 is count for percentage of 315, its your hight of your tire. R stands for radial tires. 15 is in inches, and its the size of your rim.
Pathetically I remember we tried the Metric system in the U.S. Many Freeway mileage signs had Metric added, except all the road exits were even miles apart from each other, and the metric distance were in fractions of a kilometer. How could anyone remember fractions??
Because we like they're being 5,280 ft in a mile 🤣 Why? Who knows 🤣 We use liters - but only if you're measuring soda and booze. 🤣 We really enjoy using anything but the metric system to measure almost anything. We measure the length of things in football fields. We measure the size of things like a Chinese spy balloon in school buses. Why? Because freedom or something.
1592, the English Parliament standardized the mile to be made up of eight furlongs, with each furlong being 660 feet long. This decision led to the 5280-foot mile that we use today.
Making it even more complicated, an American football field is 100 yards long and an association football field is 120 yards. Although American football would be 120 yards if you include the end zones. I know this because I played association football (soccer) and we played on our school's football field and our goals were directly under the football upright goals. A football pitch is also wider than an American football field.
NASA and the companies working on the Apollo program used metric. The Saturn rocket (which put Americans on the moon) was designed by Wernher von Braun, a German, who definitely never used imperial for his calculations. So it’s OK if you start talking about changing.
Who was the country that slammed a probe into Mars because a subcontractor insisted on US traditional units? But yes, the rest of us are impressed that Americans had the ingenuity to land men on the moon while still using their traditional units. It will be easier for the Chinese.
@@Mare_Man The Apollo computer worked internally in metric units, but converted to US customary units for display. That says more about the astronaut's ability to work with metric units, or lack thereof, than the instrumentation.
My husband is a design engineer. He works in the metric system daily for his drawings. But when at home, it’s back to the other one. It works for us I guess.
What I've always found funny about the metric system is that it's a system based on tens, but use of the official terms 'decimeter' and 'decameter' never really caught on to any practical usage, whereas millimeter, centimeter and kilometer did. Ever notice that there's no such problem with the terms inch, foot or yard in the imperial system?
My middle school PE teacher and freshman basketball coach discovered she had melanoma right after I moved schools. She was gone within 3 years. She was a fantastic woman and a great inspiration for myself and many of her past players. PLEASE, if you think you’ve got a weird looking mole or something like it, get it checked out!
In America, we traditionally use cups to measure liquid. I believe a cup is something like 8 ounces of water weight. Don’t quote me on that. This became a problem for me when I got a dietitian to help me out because I’m an obese person and she told me I need to drink 16 to 18 cups of water a day. I had no clue what she was talking about and I was born and raised here in the United States. I have since gotten her to switch over to metric when talking to me because imperial measurements just don’t make sense. Before you say anything, I use metric measurements every day of my life despite the fact that I am a truck driver. Why the United States didn’t go over to metric decades or centuries ago simply befuddles me. We’ve had ample opportunities to do this and yet we keep dropping the ball. If a politician told me “tomorrow and from here forward, the United States will be going over to metric units only,” I would be dancing in the street. By the way, I make sure to drink my 3 to 4 L of water a day.
Even as an Australian, I use inches and feet when gestimating stuff, because thet are both easier to visualise and have a larger margin of error, and I was born way after we standardised metric.
It's all arbitrary. 60 seconds. 60 minutes. 24 hours. 7 days a week. 28, 29, 30, or 31 days a month. 7 notes in a diatonic scale. 12 notes in a chromatic scale. Etc etc etc
A factor in choosing to use divisions of 12, 24, and 60 is that they are evenly divisible. One weakness metric has is using a conversion factor of 10 because 10 can only be evenly divided by 2 and 5. With a base of 10, something simple like dividing a day of 10 hours into thirds (for three shifts) requires the use of fractions or repeating decimals, while a day of 24 hours evenly divides into three sets of 8 hours. The reason that months can have 28, 29, 30, and 31 days is due to adjustments made to the calendar that moved some days from February to other months. A factor in this is that the year is (roughly) 365.25 days, and there is nothing that can be done about that. There have been proposals to fix the calendar. Two of them are (both result in a calendar of 365/366 days): (1) 13 months of 28 days each, with the first day of the year being New Year Day that is not in a month and one day added at the end of the year during Leap Years. (2) The first day of the year is New Year Day and is not in a month, following by 12 months with 30 days in the odd months and 31 days in the even months with the exception of the last month. The last month has 31 days in Leap Years.
I used to own a 1998 Ford Ranger in America. I had to have both sets if tools to work on it. SAE as well as metric. Depended on where each section was made.
Once, when I was about 3, I saw a purple spilled liquid on the concrete. I thought it was dimetapp. A cough syrup I liked the taste of. Whatever it was, I got sick and threw up. I never get sick and have zero allergies
I remember when the US adopted the metric system in the 1970's. Suddenly highway signs posting speed limits were measured in kilometers per hour rather than miles per hour. This didn't last long. Every highway sign I see is posted in miles per hour-to this day. By the way, the artwork by a chimp illustrates the "value" of most avant garde artwork today.........
I wonder how switching to metric in America would change the construction sector. We currently buy plywood and roofing boards in 4x8 ft sheets and concrete is sold by yards. And oue framing studs are 16in on center. Would we switch to the closest cm measure?
In Australia plywood is 2400mm * 1200mm (or 3000mm x; or x 900mm) Using the approximation of 1' = 300mm we pretty much rounded the size to the nearest 10cm Framing is about the same to similar approximations
11:44 I'm afraid NASA has switched to metric since the1990 but they still have archaic systems to support namely the International Space Station that forbids them to make the switch. Space x uses metric also, so it's getting ever so cheaper to switch to metric.
As an American, I will admit the metric system is superior, but for most people (like me, in manufacturing for instance) we’re so used to the imperial system that it would cause more problems to switch. I always find it annoying when that one engineer sends a set of prints down in metric and now I have to convert it all because even the machinery uses strictly imperial.
I remember being taught the metric system in grade school and telling Dad how easy it was...he railed against the change, being in the lumber industry. Still makes me frustrated.
Base 12 is much easier when dividing (that's why metric time was never adopted and navigation still uses 360 degree compass readings). Imperial (base 12) also makes construction of buildings etc. easier because dividing by 12,8,6,4 and 2 results in whole numbers. If you're not a carpenter this may not make sense to you but it's true IRL. Some metric countries still use imperial for wood products.
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bobtom149 You have to be kidding 😂😂
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@@nunya___ They use both. Jesus. It's not that hard.
@31:00 that is so interesting, I can get very upset and angry/panicked when I hear certain specific sounds that others barely register. Yeah I have autism btw ;), these studies are very interesting!
Be autistic sucks, especially nowadays because while knowledge of it is more prevelant, people no longer believe us when we say we suffer from it. I'm tired of being so overwhelmed so easily all the damn time, my ears and eyes hurt and things touching me makes me want to lash out.
I still think in Feet and inches. I use inches in long measurements and mm in short measurements. Kg in big weights, ounces when cooking. Inches as in 2x4 but mm in timber length. inches in Board sizes, mm in board thicknesses. Weird.
0:00 Why Doesn’t the United States Use the Metric System?
20:55 Why Does the Sound of Fingernails on a Chalkboard or Scraping a Plate Make Us Cringe?
35:09 Why Do We Have Moles All Over Our Bodies and What Do They Do?
42:55 Why Doesn’t the Heart Get Tired and Need to Rest Like Other Muscles?
54:25 Why Do Some People Think the Human Soul Weighs 21 Grams?
1:06:14 Why Do the Eyes in Some Paintings Follow You Around the Room?
1:11:17 Why Does Soda Taste Significantly Better When Carbonated vs. Flat?
1:14:01 Why Do We Get Allergies?
1:27:33 Why You Sometimes Get a Lump in the Back of Your Throat When Sad and Why We Cry
1:32:44 Why Coffee Makes You Poop
1:40:14 Why Can’t People Smell Themselves?
Nails is spelled wrong in the slide at 20:55
The US DOES actually use the metric system... just not in daily visible surface life.
As a kid in the UK just after metrification, I remember a beautiful illustration in a conversation between my Dad and the staff:
"25 yards of hosepipe please."
"Sorry, sir, we're metric now."
"Oh, 25 metres then."
"Certainly sir, 3/4 or 1/2 inch?"
People who drive on the wrong side of the road and measure personal body weight by stones shouldn’t throw kilos.
Good one, Homes!
You're not wrong.
And with no Independence Day of their own, why bother listeingn to them?
Those that live in thatch houses or something or other...lol
😂😂😂
Hey, I'll measure my freedom in cheeseburgers per bald eagle thank you very much.
Ba-cawl!
Absolutely Legend😂😂😂😂
It's a good thing that you'll never need an abortion.🤣🤣
I live in Canada, which is metric. But I’m 6’4 and weigh 240 LBS. our road signs are metric but our houses are built standard. I can switch between the two quite easily. The Fahrenheit and Celsius thing is different.
Oooh, so manly. Very hot
Util you hit -40 on both.
I'm American, but have Celsius down from listening to Canadian Public Radio for a long time. 😂
I use a mix of both dammed near every day. I Really don't get the hate.
Yeah, I thought you guys up there were exclusively metric and was surprised to hear all the familiar "freedom units" thrown around, when I got there. Distance and speed took a minute to get used to, but not too bad.
I am a few thousand km south of you and also can covert in my head except for temperature. Other Americans think it's weird.
An added cost to a metric conversion on interstate highways is that every mile on the roads has a mile marker with whatever mile on that road numbered. Between those mile markers are nine more posts with a simple white reflector. These designate a tenth of a mile. The number of people today who even know this, or who even know what those reflectors represent is shrinking fast. However, it is still a valid measuring device since it is simple and needs no electricity to use.
Though the conversion could come gradually as road signs need replacement at the end of their lives.
@@Libertaro-i2uThere's no need to convert a system that has been in use for years, particularly when in large parts of the U.S. the road system is gridded off in miles.
@@scarpfish yeah, sure, great validity in that argument. Not like Europe hadn't used their systems often for millenia... Sheesh 🙄
Simple for the few drivers left with any sort of common sense and situational awareness...
If your car breaks down or you accidentally drive off the road into the woods, it’d be good to know about what mile marker you passed last. Same for directing emergency vehicles. Personally I’d leave this in place. The cost to survey and replace millions of signs and reflectors would be incredible
The funny thing about metric in the US is that we *do* use it. The US officially adopted the metric system in the 1970s, it's why when you buy anything you see both imperial and metric measurements on the side. They just didn't mandate its use.
Meanwhile in the UK for decades...
we have tried to switch over, but inevitably a politician gets the idea he'll lose votes if we do, or some company that bribes him decides they'll lose money. it's the same dumb reason why we can't get away from daylight savings.
The US tries to use an international standard. Conversion between the Imperial system and the metric system is explained in plain terms like how many std. African elephants you need to fill and Olympic swimmingpool - then everyone knows exactly the measurements. At other times it's the international grapefruit or the basketball used as reference for size. All giving a reference within a cats whisker give or take a cat.
Yes, this is in the video
@@abcdef-qk6jfThe US does not use the Imperial system. For example a real gallon weighs 10 lbs but a US one falls short.
Ed: gallon of water
I demand that the world change their measurement of speed: mph, kph? No, sir. I demand we use the unit of “furloughs per fortnight.”
😂😂😂😂
NASA then went on to lose the Mars Climate Orbiter because they (JPL) used metric while Lockheed Martin used imperial. Literally burning up $193M of NASA’s budget in today’s money.
NASA has risen from the ashes of the unfocused 'malaise' era to breathtaking (and successful) accomplishments in the last few years..bravo!
Ehm, it was lost because Lockheed Martin staff did not follow instructions and contracts. All NASA stuff is metric afaik and has been so for a long time. Mostly because of it being 10 base but also because of international cooperation - the world uses metric, science uses metric, etc.
In the uk the construction industry still goes by imperial and metric with most of the metric just being the imperial standard in metric.
Main reason we dont change to metric? For general daily use there just is no reason as long as people understand the units in use and they do. For stem or other fields that need more precision we do use metric already so the US uses both. Metric for specific purposes and Imperial for daily life.
Exactly. Either way, it's an arbitrary system. Just pick one and stick with it. I really don't care what France or Germany uses. And many countries, like Canada or the UK, use idiosyncratic hybrid systems with several different units of measurement, depending on what it is.
Metric is easier to convert.
I would think the aerospace industry required precision, and yet aerospace continues to utilize US Customary Units
@@firefighter1c57 And yet the U.S. has led aerospace innovation globally for the last 70 years. So, I guess it works just fine.
@bsmithhammer that... that was my point. OP said, for industry like STEM, where more precision is needed, the US uses metric... Aerospace utilizes US Customary, and Aerospace requires precision...
#1 selling tool in America is the 10mm socket. I have purchased at least a dozen in the last year and probably 100 in my life.
I bought four 10mm sockets last year and nothing i have has 10mm bolts.
"Why doesn't the US use the metric system?"
Here we go again, Internet.
no, stupidity
Lol, the US uses both. Imperial is more common. But both imperial and metric are used in a variety of everyday situations here.
Calling it stupid is the pot calling the kettle black.
@@Dreckmal01 I agree. I use em both, too.
This is the year of recycling content from 2015 and starting all over again.
@@Dreckmal01 I use liters to measure liquids all the time.
You will not be able graduate high school in the USA if you don’t understand the metrics system because we have to learn physics and chemistry.
Nobody does physics with foot-pounds when there are Newton-meters
Imagine trying to layout the gridiron lines for football using the metric system!
That would be nuts!
I'll agree to the metric system when the British stop weighing stuff in "Stone."
And speed in 'miles per hour'
@@Trenz0i would get a lot of speeding tickets if they switched to Kilometers per hour
@@mitchconner403 Although kilometers per hour make it seem like you're going faster than when using mile per hour.
We use metric for weight in the UK. It's weird Americans use pounds but many don't know what a stone is.
@@rwentfordable IIRC, 1 stone = 14 lbs.
because "Quarter pounder with cheese" sounds better than "113 gram with cheese"
Over here a "quarterpounder" is 125 grams, as a metric pound is 500 grams.
On a side note, when Germany metricized, some "intermediary units" were metric feet and inches, that relate to the metre the same way their imperial counterparts relate to the yard.
They were discarded in less than a decade, as decimal subunits are easier to work with.
@@peregreena9046 yes but over there you use pounds to pay for your 125 gram with cheese
Royale wit Cheese - Vincent Vega
I like a quarter kilo burger.. That's a good chunk of meat.
@@canadiannomad_once_again A quarter kilo burger would roughly be a double quarter-pounder.
The way you explain this adds a level of comedic value with sensible thought
The U.S. uses both the metric system and our own units (which are defined in S.I. terms), so we are effectively bilingual. When my European collogues ask why, I ask them why the E.U. doesn't mandate a single common language and outlaw the rest.
No need for change. Science is already done in metric here in US. I do structural design in ft inch an 16th inches and forces in lbs. Not hard, you just use decimal ft and convert the output to when needed. I like our system. All our building plans would need to be redone and would have lots of odd measurements. Like it or no people like whole numbers and the English units sizes work well for things like building.
1/16" = 4.5 points
I work in the machining industry, so I've had to learn mm. However, I still prefer imperial tolerances.
I wish the U.S. had Officially Switched to the Metric System when I was younger. I’m 81 and I can do the conversion without too much effort, but it’s a pain in the Ass to have to do it. I don’t automatically start measuring my working out @ the gym and walking in metric units. My new Pick Up has the capability to switch freely between Cheeseburgers X Eagles to Metric, so I’m covered, which ever way it goes. In any case, whether I’m accelerating 0 to 60(62) miles per hour or 0 to 100 kilometers per hour IT’S REALLY QUICK! Waaay more fun to drive than the Old School 4X4 it is replacing. But if we get some snow this winter and I need to pull some people out I’ll probably take the GMC. Because I’m familiar with it (and I don’t want to get my new one dirty!)
There are 3 feet in 1 yard, but we rarely use yards even when measuring large distances.
Or my favourite Ballistics. (Still measure using Metrics lol) Only reason I know about States measurements is due to Football.
I've had people mention that I am the only person they know that uses a yard on a regular basis.
They had an aaaaahhhh moment when I told them that that was because it is easier for me to convert meters to yards than it is to feet.
Golf, Football (not Fútboʻll), and shooting sports are measured in Yards.
But a yard and a meter are close enough you can more or less say the other anyway.
@@crnobogmetres and yards are near enough interchangeable in conversation. If I was building a space shuttle I’d be a bit more careful.
@@playgroundchooser Yep I distinctly remember as a kid individuals having an argument over calling the Meter Stick a Yard Stick and vise versa lol.
At the outbreak of WWII, we had an opportunity to change over to the metric system with the production of war materials. The only thing that stood in the way was the nationalistic ferver that was abounding at the time. The ego is difficult to logic away. "Our system is better".
The final nail in the metric USA coffin was Reagan in 1981.
and then it got worse in other areas.
The nail in the coffin was France once again losing to Germany in record time and failing to remain a world power or keep the international language.
I'm an American who was not taught metric in school, one who is not in fabrication, engineering, science, or construction, and as such had no real reason to learn it.
I've still learned to become somewhat bilingual in both metric and imperial units, including volume, temperature, distance/speed, and weight.
given that my speedometer shows both M/H AND KM/H, products give weight in pounds/ounces and KG/G, volume in gallons/fl. oz. and L/ML, and size in Feet/inches and M/CM/MM, and that it was fairly simple to find a weather app that allows you to show both F and C.
We have no real excuse.
I'm BARELY what I would consider "average" in intelligence, so being "average" is not an excuse either.
The actual average American though would have written this long paragraph with 3+ obivious grammatical errors with missing or wrong punctuation. So sir, I do think you are above average.
@@TonyZEHS quillbot is amazing, i can't take credit for the well formed grammar and spelling XD
an absolute life saver for machine translation too, while not as good as deepl for that, it supports Filipino for translating my in-laws if they don't know how to say something in English, whereas deepl doesn't.
It sounds like Simon is saying the American public are the stumbling block to the metric conversion. I'm a 66 year old American and I learned metric in grade school. We were told that everything would be metric by the time we grew up. I never understood why it didn't change but I don't remember being asked if I wanted to change. My answer would have been, "Absolutely!" I don't think the general public can be blamed for the lack of this change. If anyone knows differently, please enlighten me.
The Reagan Administration pulled the plug on the American metric conversion project of the 70s.
I was born in 1970, and I grew up learning both systems. I’m pretty comfortable with units that are small enough for me to put into context. Anything bigger than the equivalent of a football field or a ten gallon bucket or three hundred pounds (in either system), and I have trouble personally picturing it. I can use bigger units, of course. I just can’t automatically picture how big an acre, a mile, or a kilometer are. The only stuff that won’t seem to stick in my head is when people measure temperature in Celsius / Centigrade. Boiling point, freezing point, and (roughly) body temperature are the only parts I know. That’s probably because I almost never hear anybody around me using degrees C.
Hi, David. I am just a couple years younger than you with a similar story. My life took me into mechanical engineering and mostly I design parts to fit existing European manufacture machinery so I am by necessity well versed in metric mechanical design. Of course, I can also design to American standard. (Which is ironic since one of the arguments is how "dumb" Americans cannot understand the metric system; in fact, we are the opposite of "dumb" since so many of us can go back and forth between the two systems, no problem. Sort of a parallel to being "bi-lingual".) The USA is in fact a "metric" country by government decree (as Simon pointed out), but the government does NOT mandate that metric MUST be used. It is at our own discretion.
"If anyone knows differently, please enlighten me."
So I have long believed that the USA has not converted wholeheartedly to metric because.... for lack of better wording..... Why should we? By that I mean, what benefit would it bring to our daily lives? It is a pretty easy argument to say that our current logistical system of moving goods and commodities around the country is the envy of the world. Our trucking, rail, shipping industries are refined to the highest efficiency in the world. And, as a mechanical engineer, I believe this can be credited to the lowly Standard Pallet. 40" x 48" is the critical dimension. Many products are designed so as to fit efficiently so many pieces to match the footprint of the 40 x 48. Trailers are designed to fit so many 40 x 48 pallets efficiently. Forklifts and pallet jacks are designed to move 40 x 48's around efficiently. Etc., etc., etc. This is the way its been for over 100 years and thus the US logistical network has grown to be the biggest, best, and most efficient in the world.
So what if we were to convert to metric? One of two things must happen. Either 1) we change the standard pallet to 1 m x 1.2 m, or 2) We keep the 40 x 48, but instead start calling it the "1016 mm by 1219 mm". So which would it be? If # 1), that means everything changes. New truck trailers will be built to different dimensions to fit the new standard sizes (which means they won't fit old, existing pallets efficiently anymore during their remaining life). The old trailers will still be around for another 20, 30, 40 years, so they will not efficiently fit the new standard pallets ever. Or if we go with # 2), what is the point? The pallets would literally stay at the efficient 40" x 48" measurement that has served us well for a hundred years, but now we are gonna call it 1016 x 1219? What advantage is that? Of course, the answer is absolutely none.
So the world can try to make the US a pariah for not using metric all they want, but the fact is that logistically, it would be a step backward for the US to start using metric numbers as our standard. There are potentially huge costs with little to no real benefits in doing so.
@@donsitarski3352 That makes a lot of sense.
Canada uses an interesting combination of metric and SI units (called Imperial units here). For instance, butter is sold in 454 gram blocks -- not coincidentally, 454 grams is one pound. Some things are labelled in metric (at least, the largest number is metric, though both may be shown), and can be asked for in either kind of units -- for instance, fabric and lumber, which can easily be bought by the yard or the foot. Staff are trained to used conversion tables, or software may be able to make the conversion. A quart, confusingly, can be either the Imperial or US size, Imperial being the larger unit, 1.1365225 versus 0.945352 litres.
Not mentioned are the vast number of various US documents that are in Imperial measurement (i.e., cook books, legal documents, building specs, contracts). Most of which pre-date the Internet and almost all would have to be modified. This alone creates an enormous incentive to stay with Imperial even if metric is objectively better.
If you are old enough, you remember the failed rollout of the metric system in the US. You would remember the dual speed signs (both metric and englis) on the highways. My opinion for why it failed is because the rollout was backward. The us would teach the old units in grade school and wait to high school to teach the metric system. Teach the number of inches in a meter instead of teaching the door knob is about a meter off the floor to first graders. If everyone leaving grade school knew metric first than in a single generation, it would have changed.
I was in grade school in the 1980's and I remember teachers telling us we had to learn the metric system because "someday it will be the main system of measure" in this country. Well that day never came and we all knew it 😂
@100percentSNAFU I will remember that when I buy me 2 liter Pepsi and pick up my 14mm wrinch while working on my car. I'm old enough to remember when the US tried and failed to convert to the metric system. Was there another country that tried and failed to convert to metric? Nothing to brag about.🤣
I love these 'catch-up episodes' of the combination of TIFO episodes. I don't have to go chase down a bunch of episodes on my own, just BAM, a dozen or more episodes all at once!
Being originally from the land of guns, freedom and driving on the "right" side of the road...I've been living in Japan for over 10 years and still have to do a rough translation to Liberty units. 😅
It's very difficult to change a system that people are used to. Only think why we don't just have decimal time units, say, 100 hour days, and an hour divided in 100 minutes. We still use the Assyrian/Babylonian system that counts to 12 using one hand and up to 60 using two hands.
They count the finger joints on the right hand and use the fingers of the left hand to count in sexagesimal.
The French attempted "decimal time" (because of course they did) and it failed miserably.
@100percentSNAFU : Imagine how profound the changes would be if a decimal time would be adopted, although in principle that would be a simplification...
20:19 Are we really on our way to using the metric system if we are 'inching towards' it?
Better inching towards it than pointing towards it.
@@JamesDavy2009 These are great points we're both not making, beside a decimal point is like an 's' at the end of math, it's just not really needed, much like a period in exchange for a comma , as long as you're willing to sacrifice a little grammar, it works fine, over
@@stancil83 I was actually joking about the point unit, which is 1/72 of an inch.
A lot, maybe most, speed limit signs don't have units. Just think of all the fun and games when "Speed Limit 60" signs are changed to "Speed Limit 100”.
That's a good point. I don't think I have ever seen a speed limit sign in the U.S. that actually denotes "MPH". However every speed limit sign I have seen in Canada does show km/h.
Living in the farmbelt of the US, I have always joked about why we haven't gone metric: You know how much it would cost, let alone the work that would have to be put in to dig up every mile section of roads and lay them back down in kilometer distances?
Though conversion of road signs to kilometers wouldn't be that expensive if at the end of their lives, road signs were replaced with km versions.
Here in Oklahoma most people don't realize it but the slow conversion has begun on the Highways. New highway projects have started adding anywhere from .2 to .5 mile markers when the work is being done. rude but the first step.
Being a European automotive tech, I only think in metric. But can’t seem to change my brain when in comes MPH, temperature or weights. Anything larger than than 40mm , my brain switches to imperial.
Being an American automotive tech, I feel this comment completely. Basically every nut and bolt, socket and wrench I can convert readily. KPH, Celsius, and KM and my brain shuts down to the level of a toddler lol. I made a serious attempt years ago with a Honda Prelude I had, with the electroluminescent dash. I was able to switch the digital readout to KPH and KMs instead of MPH and miles when I tell you it was expensive, I’m not joking. I came close to losing my license over all the tickets I racked up for either driving way under the speed limit, or over estimating the conversion and driving much faster than I should have been. 😅
@O5IR15 my first duty station was Ft. Drum New York, and I spent a lot of time in Canada back then. A Canuk taught me a simple conversion. Take the speed, let's say 25mph. Split it in half, 12.5mph and add them together. 37.5mph. Now add 10% so, 2.5mph, and that gives you 40kph. For 60mph, add 30 = 90kph, and another 10%, 6.0 equals 96kph.
20 years ago, I lived in the UK for a couple of years and was a little surprised that Imperial units were still used particularly on road signs. One more wrinkle is the fact that the British Imperial units while having the same names as their American statute cousins are not the same. The British mile is the same as a US statute mile, but the gallon in 20 percent larger than the US gallon.
I did as well (raf upper heyford) for the usaf. 1975 to 1977. :)
Some British beer and ales are sold in the U.S. in 18.7-ounce bottles. I don't know the significance of that amount.
Yes older Canadians remember the days when American companies would slap "gallon" on a product that was 20% short and fool people. Now everything is labelled in litres so we can more easily detect that fraud. (I saw it a few months ago.)
@@JPMadden A pint as defined in the United States is 16 ounces. A British pint is 18.7 American ounces. If alcohol bottled in Britain is portioned in British pints and sold for export, that may explain the 18.7 ounce number.
@@dmac7128 A British gallon is 25% (not 20% [EDIT: It is 20% because the ounces are different sizes]) larger than the American gallon of 128 ounces. This makes a British gallon 160 ounces and a pint 20, right? Then why 18.7 ounces?
43:46 Best offhand edit ever ⭐️
Knots and nautical miles are foot-based measurements. (1 nautical mile = 6,000 feet, and 1 knot is a rate of speed equaling 6,000 feet per hour.)
Not quite true
A nautical mile is one minute of the earth’s circumference
A knot is travelling one of these per hour
Nothing to do with either feet or meters
@@marcoriviera06While I don't argue that this isn't true, wouldn't it however make a nautical mile smaller towards the poles and greater near the equator when traveling east to west or west to east?
Measured at the equator
And you can define it in big Macs or bananas, the only issue is making everyone else agree with you to use the same definition.@@100percentSNAFU
@1:03:10 Many modern hospital beds do include scales. When I was classified non-weight bearing, that is how the nurses got my weight every few days for their records. It would just take keeping the scale on and connected to some kind of monitoring.
Dis you know, when you drive through the US Google maps will switch before a turn from 0.1 Miles to 500 feet. This feels very confusing to foreigners that you suddenly have to recalculate if you live in a base 10 system in your brain
Didn’t notice this. But yeah that could suck for guests
Google is rounding it off then because 0.1 miles is 528 feet
@100percentSNAFU not necessarily rounding... you see the 0.1 miles and possibly a few feet later it switches for a very short time to 500 feet.
Fantastic video
I'm of the old adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In my chosen line of work, nursing, I only used the metric system mainly in calculating liquids and weights. In my home life, I find it way easier to use the American usage of pounds, feet, inches, yards, gallons, quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc. So I say, leave things the way they are. The world is confusing enough without adding the metric system to take the place of what is what we are used too.
Pirates stole the metric system from the U.S.A.😂
Sounds about like how our history has gone
As an American I buy 2 liter bottles, medicine dosed in mcg/mg, ammunition in x-mm, physical medical exams in cm, kg, etc. The metric system is definitely present in everyday life, which makes it harder having to know both measurement systems.
When he said "hey google", my Google assistant started listening.. 😂
Google is ALWAYS listening. Always.
I grew up in Washington state and the amount of government waste is disgusting.
We use both. Most of us use certain units because it flows better in conversation.
If I live 4 miles away, I GET what that is.
Where the h3ll is 6.437376 Km supposed to be?
You would just say, "I live about 6 and half kilometers away." Also, the "mile" you speak of is technically called a "statute mile." There are also nautical miles which are a bit longer than statute miles but are used in maritime and aviation for measuring distance. (1 nautical mile is exactly 6,000 feet. So, if a ship is traveling at a speed of 10 knots, it is traveling at a rate of 60,000 feet per hour.) And arguably, one can only join the "mile high club" if they do the deed at an altitude of at least 6,000 feet. 😆
I switched over to metric for the hardware that I use for my Hobby projects about 10 years ago. At that time it was almost impossible to buy a metric twist drill set from retail sources her in the US. I just checked Amazon and there are many metric drill sets available now. I know it’s a small thing, but it is an indicator.
Metric & road signs: produce adhesive (plastic film extra strong adhesive) labels that are simply placed over existing ones.
For direction signs with distance, simply place adhesive label only over the distance.
Cost of mass produced labels = a few cents.
Installation = wiping clean old sign and applying new = 10 minutes.
Then when a sign needs replacing due to old age or damage, you install a fresh metric sign.
Basically, where there's a will there's a way...
Fingernails on a chalkboard never made me cringe. I don't mind the sound of it, and was in fact, the kid dragging his nails across that chalk board.
So I'm from the US. I get how the metric system is easier and more intuitive to use and that it makes more sense, but I (and I realize this is likely just because I've always used US customary units) don't like the units. Centimeters are too short. Meters are too long, kilometers are too short, kilograms are too heavy and celsius degrees are too big. If you tell me you're 182.88cm tall, that's so hard for me to conceptualize, but if you say you're six feet, ok, I get that. Measurement units can get stupid though. I reload ammunition. If you're not from a place where folks have easy legal access to firearms, that means that I make my own ammunition using shell casings from rounds that have already been fired and using special tools to resize them, remove the spent primer, install a new primer, add new gunpowder and a new bullet. To do this, I have to work with caliber (100ths of an inch) and millimeters to measure the diameter of a bullet depending on the type and grains (.0648 grams) to measure the weight of bullets and amounts of powder. It's stupid.🤣
"Centimetres are too short" 😂😂😂
You would never say any one is 182.88 tho, you'd just say 183 since 2mm is so little its completely irrelevant in such an example
Yet you would actually say that you are 1.83m tall so you CAN visualize it easier 👌
I understand where you’re coming from. I can visualize moa. Mil…. Not a chance. 1:1000 of whatever measurement I used.. wtf is 1:1000 of a yard??
@@olovlundstedt507But 183 cm is 1/254 feet too tall! We can all visualize how wrong that is.
As for the person who wonders wtf one thousandth of a yard is, it is 1mm for day to day purposes and I can easily visualize it.
I did the math to come up with danny devito speed per hour taking account for age, weight, flexibility, stride length, stride cadence. All bc i refuse to use kph, danny devito is also used as a measuring distance
This is fair
I never went to university so when I got a job in the bio-medical field as a Biomedical Engineer I had to teach my self the metric system. Was not hard to learn. I worked developing the i-STAT blood analyzer at Abbott Point of care.
For example when automotive repairmen work on foreign cars they need to know the metric system and have the proper tools. companies who build houses not so much. It depends on the circumstance or what a person does for a living. When I measure out my insulin for my injection, it’s cc’s. Or units. Most people are pretty flexible if they have to be.
I wonder if one of the reasons the baby's laugh and the baby's cry are both pleasant and unpleasant respectively has anything to do with our own brains remembering deep down our joy from laughing and our anguish from crying as baby's ourselves.
I did not see it mentioned but one benefit to the US system of distance measurement is that it is easier to measure things when you don't have anything to measure with. A foot is roughly the size of the average persons actual foot so we can get rough distances very easily just by pacing them out heel to toe. A yard is roughly the average persons stride so longer distances can be measured by counting steps. An inch is roughly the distance from the base of you thumb to your fingernail. That said, as a 3D designer here in the US I greatly prefer to use the metric system and if someone gives me specifications in inches/feet then the first thing I do is convert to metric. It is far easier to determine what half of 2.778mm is than half of 7/64 inches.
What do you mean, Americans use 9mm in schools all the time
Brilliant 😂
I have to laugh so I don't cry 😂
Touché..!
There's a reason we broke the red empire and is now just another gray island.. and lol he said you're still taking from the french😂
Hahaha damn that was a good one as F'd up as it is. Love me some dark humor
The nails on a chalk board noise isn't a fight or flight response for me. It's more like an intense ASMR response. Like tingles all over but intense and almost painful. Not fight or flight though, at least for me.
I don’t find the sound annoying, the annoying part is imagining my own nails being pulled back like that
As a culinary employee, we ALWAYS made sure the crew were familiar with metric.
But, also as a cook, most of us know how much a gram costs...
I remember in the 4th grade they unveiled metric on us but somewhere along that year (approx 1964) it vanished and I never saw it again in school.
I work with both, on the regular, and metric is much easier to use.
However, it would take me a while to get used to integrating it in the rest of my daily life. I'm on board with phasing it in.
This feels like an old Simon video, the beard is so short, he must've cut 2.54cm of it
have you ever heard of a thing called a beard trimmer? or are you Amish?
27:00 The light is on. This is actually a 15 minute video he did 4 years ago.
I worked in precision manufacturing until 2008, and the inch system was used, although sometimes I would get an engineering blueprint that used the metric system and printed the measurements in millimeters, so I converted the dimensions to inch that my measuring tools designed for. One CNC machine was bought that used the metric system for measurement calculations. I had to convert the millimeters to inch by dividing them by 25.4 and input all the changes needed in the machine's instruction manual. One company moved to Mexico and another that I worked for shut down its manufacturing to have it done for them in Korea, China, and India. Wouldn't it be ironic if the US started manufacturing anything again besides cars and trucks and had to switch to metric? My guess is that the automotive sector here is using all metric measurement.
@ 42:00 I used to tan until the light bulb 💡 went on and I realized sunlight is "Solar Radiation"☢ it turns plastic into dust in a few years. Now I cover my arms bicycle riding.
20k dollars for a sign is criminal 💀💀💀💀
It should be. But everyone in government built in favors for everyone who got them elected and it all piles up
We do. Last I checked, 9 was cheap but the price has been going up… 5.7 it is
Of course the metric system is so much simpler than 12’s… said nobody ever looking at a 315/75r15 tire trying to figure out the actual dimensions of it.
In your case 315 is millimeter of tires witht, 75 is count for percentage of 315, its your hight of your tire. R stands for radial tires. 15 is in inches, and its the size of your rim.
Pathetically I remember we tried the Metric system in the U.S. Many Freeway mileage signs had Metric added, except all the road exits were even miles apart from each other, and the metric distance were in fractions of a kilometer. How could anyone remember fractions??
Yep. Like when the stock market used dollars and eighths. Like how many cents is in 3/8? At least that was fixed
Because we like they're being 5,280 ft in a mile 🤣 Why? Who knows 🤣
We use liters - but only if you're measuring soda and booze. 🤣
We really enjoy using anything but the metric system to measure almost anything.
We measure the length of things in football fields.
We measure the size of things like a Chinese spy balloon in school buses.
Why? Because freedom or something.
1592, the English Parliament standardized the mile to be made up of eight furlongs, with each furlong being 660 feet long. This decision led to the 5280-foot mile that we use today.
I do the same. I'll measure in football fields, blue whales, and school busses before I ever consider metric as an option.
Making it even more complicated, an American football field is 100 yards long and an association football field is 120 yards. Although American football would be 120 yards if you include the end zones. I know this because I played association football (soccer) and we played on our school's football field and our goals were directly under the football upright goals. A football pitch is also wider than an American football field.
when a country that uses the metric system puts a man on the moon then we'll talk about changing.
NASA and the companies working on the Apollo program used metric. The Saturn rocket (which put Americans on the moon) was designed by Wernher von Braun, a German, who definitely never used imperial for his calculations. So it’s OK if you start talking about changing.
@@Mitch.Buchannon Every instrument the Apollo astronauts used was in Imperial units.
Who was the country that slammed a probe into Mars because a subcontractor insisted on US traditional units?
But yes, the rest of us are impressed that Americans had the ingenuity to land men on the moon while still using their traditional units. It will be easier for the Chinese.
@@Mare_Man The Apollo computer worked internally in metric units, but converted to US customary units for display. That says more about the astronaut's ability to work with metric units, or lack thereof, than the instrumentation.
Argue about that all you want, but come back and talk to me when any of you supplant the United States as the largest economy in the world 😂😂😂
How long ago was this filmed?! Simon has his ‘young’ beard!
My husband is a design engineer. He works in the metric system daily for his drawings. But when at home, it’s back to the other one. It works for us I guess.
52:43 What is said here? "short answer? that's the dormammu" ?
The Celsius thing messes with me.
My high school in Virginia had a tiger painted on the gym wall. The eyes followed you all over the room.😂 Intimidation to opponents.
What I've always found funny about the metric system is that it's a system based on tens, but use of the official terms 'decimeter' and 'decameter' never really caught on to any practical usage, whereas millimeter, centimeter and kilometer did. Ever notice that there's no such problem with the terms inch, foot or yard in the imperial system?
There's also the square hectometre, commonly known as the hectare.
There are two kinds of countries in the world, thous that use the metic system and those with stealth bombers.
My middle school PE teacher and freshman basketball coach discovered she had melanoma right after I moved schools. She was gone within 3 years. She was a fantastic woman and a great inspiration for myself and many of her past players. PLEASE, if you think you’ve got a weird looking mole or something like it, get it checked out!
In America, we traditionally use cups to measure liquid. I believe a cup is something like 8 ounces of water weight. Don’t quote me on that. This became a problem for me when I got a dietitian to help me out because I’m an obese person and she told me I need to drink 16 to 18 cups of water a day. I had no clue what she was talking about and I was born and raised here in the United States. I have since gotten her to switch over to metric when talking to me because imperial measurements just don’t make sense. Before you say anything, I use metric measurements every day of my life despite the fact that I am a truck driver. Why the United States didn’t go over to metric decades or centuries ago simply befuddles me. We’ve had ample opportunities to do this and yet we keep dropping the ball. If a politician told me “tomorrow and from here forward, the United States will be going over to metric units only,” I would be dancing in the street. By the way, I make sure to drink my 3 to 4 L of water a day.
The use of the term "Freedon Units" for "Imperial" never fails to amuse me.
Even as an Australian, I use inches and feet when gestimating stuff, because thet are both easier to visualise and have a larger margin of error, and I was born way after we standardised metric.
It's all arbitrary. 60 seconds. 60 minutes. 24 hours. 7 days a week. 28, 29, 30, or 31 days a month. 7 notes in a diatonic scale. 12 notes in a chromatic scale. Etc etc etc
A factor in choosing to use divisions of 12, 24, and 60 is that they are evenly divisible. One weakness metric has is using a conversion factor of 10 because 10 can only be evenly divided by 2 and 5. With a base of 10, something simple like dividing a day of 10 hours into thirds (for three shifts) requires the use of fractions or repeating decimals, while a day of 24 hours evenly divides into three sets of 8 hours.
The reason that months can have 28, 29, 30, and 31 days is due to adjustments made to the calendar that moved some days from February to other months. A factor in this is that the year is (roughly) 365.25 days, and there is nothing that can be done about that. There have been proposals to fix the calendar. Two of them are (both result in a calendar of 365/366 days):
(1) 13 months of 28 days each, with the first day of the year being New Year Day that is not in a month and one day added at the end of the year during Leap Years.
(2) The first day of the year is New Year Day and is not in a month, following by 12 months with 30 days in the odd months and 31 days in the even months with the exception of the last month. The last month has 31 days in Leap Years.
I used to own a 1998 Ford Ranger in America. I had to have both sets if tools to work on it. SAE as well as metric. Depended on where each section was made.
Once, when I was about 3, I saw a purple spilled liquid on the concrete. I thought it was dimetapp. A cough syrup I liked the taste of. Whatever it was, I got sick and threw up. I never get sick and have zero allergies
Nearly 2 hour video only answers needed.
Freedom, pissing excellence , “Teh Lols” etc.
I remember when the US adopted the metric system in the 1970's. Suddenly highway signs posting speed limits were measured in kilometers per hour rather than miles per hour. This didn't last long. Every highway sign I see is posted in miles per hour-to this day. By the way, the artwork by a chimp illustrates the "value" of most avant garde artwork today.........
I have seen upstate signs in NH near Quebec with Kilometers too. 😅
I wonder how switching to metric in America would change the construction sector. We currently buy plywood and roofing boards in 4x8 ft sheets and concrete is sold by yards. And oue framing studs are 16in on center. Would we switch to the closest cm measure?
In Australia plywood is 2400mm * 1200mm (or 3000mm x; or x 900mm)
Using the approximation of 1' = 300mm we pretty much rounded the size to the nearest 10cm
Framing is about the same to similar approximations
11:44 I'm afraid NASA has switched to metric since the1990 but they still have archaic systems to support namely the International Space Station that forbids them to make the switch. Space x uses metric also, so it's getting ever so cheaper to switch to metric.
As an American, I will admit the metric system is superior, but for most people (like me, in manufacturing for instance) we’re so used to the imperial system that it would cause more problems to switch. I always find it annoying when that one engineer sends a set of prints down in metric and now I have to convert it all because even the machinery uses strictly imperial.
I remember being taught the metric system in grade school and telling Dad how easy it was...he railed against the change, being in the lumber industry. Still makes me frustrated.
It's not easy to use....
Base 12 is much easier when dividing (that's why metric time was never adopted and navigation still uses 360 degree compass readings). Imperial (base 12) also makes construction of buildings etc. easier because dividing by 12,8,6,4 and 2 results in whole numbers. If you're not a carpenter this may not make sense to you but it's true IRL. Some metric countries still use imperial for wood products.
bobtom149
You have to be kidding 😂😂
@@nunya___
They use both. Jesus. It's not that hard.
2x4s dimensions are closer to 5x10cm than 2x4in
Here in the US, we have inchworms, centipedes, and millipedes. We just like the cute little inchworms, more than we like the others.
I really wish you would label compilations of old videos as such
You do you know there is no R at the end of Alabama? But we are the dumb ones...
@31:00 that is so interesting, I can get very upset and angry/panicked when I hear certain specific sounds that others barely register. Yeah I have autism btw ;), these studies are very interesting!
Army vet here. We do use metric, but it hasnt replaced imperial at all.
18:12 Banana units is the most common as it drives you banana to compute from feet to inches.
Be autistic sucks, especially nowadays because while knowledge of it is more prevelant, people no longer believe us when we say we suffer from it. I'm tired of being so overwhelmed so easily all the damn time, my ears and eyes hurt and things touching me makes me want to lash out.
I still think in Feet and inches. I use inches in long measurements and mm in short measurements. Kg in big weights, ounces when cooking. Inches as in 2x4 but mm in timber length. inches in Board sizes, mm in board thicknesses. Weird.
What's funny is a 2x4 isn't even really 2 inches by 4 inches, more like 1.5 by 3.5 😂
@@100percentSNAFU
2x4 when cut. 1.5 x 3.5 when planed.