Why do you think the Metric System didn't catch on in the USA
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
No that is actually pretty silly.
Even sillier coming from a country whose biggest contribution is a Radio Shack robo arm.
Most of the above, but couldn't keep the pace up for a mile.
(I just want B.S. to admit he's full of shit)
I've been supplying the construction industry with components for decades and I have looked at hundreds ...maybe thousands of architectural drawings and ALL of the drawings from Western Canada are ALWAYS metric (unless they originated in the States) but most of the drawings that you see coming from Ontario are in the English system.
That always surprised me as Metric is a commie plot, etc, etc.
The Pyramids of Egypt were built long before there was any metric system. You can't get much more accurate than that!
As a surveyor for my working life I was fairly proficient in both systems as we used the Imperial for the first ten or twelve years of my employment before changing over to metric. Believe it or not the Imperial values are easier to memorise. Like 43560 square ft. in an acre or 4840 square yds. - no problem or 2.47 acres in a hectare. You don't forget those figures once you learn them. Same thing with a square mile........640 acres. An acre is roughly 209 feet square.
No, I don't believe that numbers like one million (square m/km) or ten thousand square m/hectare are easier to remember. I used to teach mapping and used both systems. Metric made the whole thing so much easier it was laughable. And I still don't know the Imperial system despite being required to memorize its arcane measurements and I'm guessing you don't either, and I'm not talking about bizarre measurement like rods, chains, and gils. I'm talking about the number of liquid ounces in a quart. The problem with the Imperial system is that it was never designed to be easy to use or based on science.
Actually neither system is any more scientific than the other. Metric seems more methodical but only because we use the base 10 system of Mathematics. Most involvement with computers is tied to the base 2 system. Maybe in a 100 years the base 10 system will have gone the way of the Dodo bird.
Pierre's rationale for changing to metric is because our trading partners around the world were on the metric system. IT's not an excuse for changing the whole system. We can still put 10 kg. of sugar in a bag w/o having to change to the metric system.Actually neither system is any more scientific than the other. Metric seems more methodical but only because we use the base 10 system of Mathematics. Most involvement with computers is tied to the base 2 system. Maybe in a 100 years the base 10 system will have gone the way of the Dodo bird.
We have base 10 mathematics because we have ten fingers. If we had 14 tentacles instead, we would do all of our calculations in base 14 numbers. There is nothing magical about 10.
The reason the metric system never caught on in the U.S. is that far too many people are born with 12 fingers, and far too many of those born with 10 lose one or more before they hit puberty.
That what happens when you cling to tradition. I tell the Quebecois the same thing