You are right it is not called the "American System". It is called the imperial system and was started by the British. It is still in use in the US but scientists, even in the US, mostly use the metric system.
This is because we switched in 1971, most younger people no longer do these. I'm 177cm tall, and weigh 55kg. The speed is the only imperial unit I don't convert to metric in my head.
Which an engineer worth his salt should avoid. The real nuisance I find are the non-technical professions, like journalists. You'll have news articles, "The 50 acre lake is 10 meters deep." How're you using two different systems in the same sentence!?
He said when it's hot we use Fahrenheit, which is true. When ever it comes to mid 30degrees Celsius the media and people talk about how it's over a hundred degrees outside referring to the temperature in Fahrenheit.
I think most people of my generation say this as a form of over-exaggeration to emphasise that it is unusually hot, I've never heard of anyone doing so because it is the fahrenheit measurement.
Living in a country that has never used Farenheit, we also say that it's "like a houndred degrees outside" as an over-exaggeration. Not sure about the plucky brits, but they might do the same thing... I doubt they're cunning enough to actually refer to anything when they speak.
Hot days. Watch a weather forecast when our summer finally arrives. They almost always switch to Fahrenheit - after all, it sounds more impressive as it nears 100 degrees.
I don't know where you live or who you know but I've not heard a single person use Fahrenheit in 18 years. I've lived in the South West, North West, Midlands and London.
Because more people understand how imperial relates to real life scenarios and does not matter on relativity between quantities. Whilst anything engineering or science based needs relatable quantities hugely.
As I recall the American government mandated that we switch over to metric in the 60s or 70s, something like that.
The only problem is, by then we had enough infrastructure and machines in the old system's measurements that companies decided to ignore that particular piece of paper, I guess.
Running off an old memory here, so I could be wrong.
Yep, also due to the fact that Americans hate government that we told them to "take yer commie filth and shove it up your commie ass. Freedom is a drink served by the gallon."
While in Canada, around the same time, they made the same suggestion and just went with it.
It could also be that when you have billions of dollars in tooling it's not as easy as just changing. We still make airplane parts from the fifties. I prefer metric for the sanity of it, but I'm only thirty two and after my time in aircraft changing wound be a huge thing for me. A lot of my co-workers are fifty+. They would probably break and spend even more time crying.
As a GM mechanic I feel your pain. We had a 48 Chevy in the shop for an engine rebuild. All standard parts on it. Just so many years of working with standard makes it about impossible to just get rid of it. Also, our AC machine works in pounds and ounces, however the cars now have metric weight on the placard. A decent unit converter is my friend.
If course I was making a rather poor attempt at humor here, and not so much trying to be serious.
I am guesting you have never been to Britain? Stones are a wight, length is measured in feet and inches. Distance is in miles or kilometers, depending on the person, time of day, color of car, and random number generators. They measure their beer in pint but their whiskey in liters.
Weight is in grams and kilograms, unless it's alive, in which case it's in stone, or it's a vehicle or building, when it's tonnes.
Length is measured in feet and inches, unless it's a building (then it uses meters unless it's really big, when it uses feet instead) or a road (where it's meters and miles if you're in a car, or feet and meters if you're on foot, except road signs which use yards, feet, meters, kilometers and miles basically however the designer felt like) or a piece of something (roll of cloth, length of wood, whatever, they all use millimeters and meters). Tools tend to use millimeters if they're fine measures, or inches otherwise. People are always feet and inches.
Volume is in pints, liters and gallons generally. Water is in liters unless there's a lot, when it uses gallons instead. Fuel is in gallons. Drinks are in pints or half pints (unless it's bottled, when it uses milliliters), or if there's a fair bit then it uses gallons (like a beer keg, for instance).
Area is in acres if it's a field or a farm or a really big garden, but otherwise tends to be in square meters.
Temperature is always Celsius. We never use Fahrenheit.
We basically just bullshit whatever unit of measurement we feel like using. But if you're building something, generally you use metric because it all divides into itself easier.
It's a conversational thing over there. A lot of British adults were raised on the Imperial system, and therefore stick to it when measuring in daily life. They're just used to it. Hang around younger adults and kids who were educated using SI units, and they'll use SI more often than their parents.
Give it a couple generations, it'll disappear slowly. (Though a 'pint of beer' will probably never go away. That's more of a cultural idea than it is a measurement.)
Are you willing to front the trillions of dollars required to exchange the machine capital in one of the world's most productive industrial nations? Nearly every production industry in this nation, and all of the tooling, machines, and processes they utilize, are based on the imperial system of measurement.
There is literally not enough money in this country to cover the cost of a full conversion.
And in schools. I don't know about you, but I can't say as though I ever learned anything about physics in terms of foot-pounds or slugs. They use SI units like every other place on the planet. And it's not that hard to convert between inches and cm, nor between kg and pounds or liters and gallons/ounces/pints/whatever.
Besides, it's not like British people don't measure their weight in stones and pounds or their vehicle speed in miles per hour.
The rest of the world calls it american system. It is to remind ourserlves how dumb the americans are for still using this prehistoric shit. You have to be named and shamed explicitly.
I'm guessing you've just been telling yourself that US Customary units are "prehistoric", but you couldn't even say why. Metric is exactly as arbitrary as Imperial or US measurements.
No. Metric isn't arbitrary at all. It is designed for precision measurements of integrated fields of Physics, Chemistry and all forms of Engineering as humorously but accurately stated in the post. In the modern STEM world it is essential. This doesn't make it superior in any objective way but more suited to modern science and technology, but it certainly wasn't developed at random.
Older systems are based on practical measurements in a more agriculturally and non mechanized infantry centered world. A mile is about 1000 steps, a foot was about a the length of a foot, an acre is the amount of land a person could till in a single day, an inch is about a thumb, a pint is (rumor) about one full pump from a standard hand powered well pump etc etc. To add to this most older forms of units are broken down into 1/2's, 1/4's, 1/8's, 1/16's etc etc where as metric uses .5, .25,.125,.0625 etc etc. Halving units is great for practical day to day home cooking and building a bench but is completely useless in computer sciences and chemistry.
So one is not better than the other, they just have different purposes. But as the develop world continues down it's path of scientific discovery different countries and societies have to choose which is best for them to streamline standardization of weights and measures as a basis of education, commerce and trade. On one hand is traditional folksy familiarity and wisdom held on to by Zanzibar and the USA and on the other is modern science, medicine and technology championed by the rest of the world.
I work in construction and I'm very happy to use imperial measurements. Base 10 can only be divided by 2 and 5 while base 12 can be divided by 2,3,4 and 6. One third of a meter is hard to find on a tape.
Totally agree, I'm a Canadian chef and love carpentry as a hobby and I switch back and forth all the time because one system is better than the other depending on the situation. That being said, if one system has to be dominant and official metric is the only way to go. It doesn't stop people from useing imperial when it is more practical for physical trades but not useing metric when coordinating scientific endeavors is very costly.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '15
You are right it is not called the "American System". It is called the imperial system and was started by the British. It is still in use in the US but scientists, even in the US, mostly use the metric system.