this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.
In what useful sense?
The units Americans use (Miles, feet, cups, ounces, etc.) actually are Metric units. They're just not the standard ones. Because, again, The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.
Citation needed. Those are United States customary units per Wikipedia. Often incorrectly named Imperial units, but this is the first time I've seen it argued they are metric.
Also, The Metric Conversion Act happened in 1975, so not since the late 1800s. It also carves out that use of metric is voluntary.
From the article you linked
Not redefined as 'metric'. It means the base measurement is connected to SI along a fixed constant. Meters and kilograms are the base units for length and mass in SI, which is actually metric. The respective USCU units for length are inch, foot, yard, and mile and mass a really annoying number of things.
The systems of measurement are connected, but USCU is not metric.
Every food label, with very few exceptions, lists the contents in either grams or milliliters, in addition to ounces or fluid ounces. Every thermometer I've ever seen has both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. We buy electricity in watts with metric currency. We measure the light output in lumens, and the common lightbulb sizes are measured in millimeters, but the wires that carry the electricity are measured by AWG. The parts on my bicycle and car all use metric measurements, except for tires. Tires are an unholy abomination with section width given in millimeters, the cross-section in a unitless ratio, and the rim diameter given in inches.
Meh, what're you gonna do? We switched to, or adopted, SI and metric where it made sense, but we have a lot of legacy systems.
It's all metric behind the scenes. When you pump your gas it shows gallons, but it's doing the math in litres. We turned our backs on the ⅓ lb burger, we've trained corporations to treat us like idiots.
Yeah engineers use metric then we convert because you (general) don’t understand metric and don’t want to learn
I'm an engineer but I work in imperial. Most machines run inches so I design in inches.
Fair enough I actually use mixed because my maintenance department doesn’t like metric but we have foreign bosses and suppliers
A thousand grams to a pineapple, and 20 football pitches to a kilometre. Simples!
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