Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?

[flat five]

me a work rn.
not a setup photo. just made me smile wrt this thread.
metric on my laptop on left. imperial on right. same project.

(client HQ in Italy)

 

[ActionableMango]

It's still unified though, and it corresponds with the cycles of the Earth, which contribute to our lives. It so makes sense.

A couple of them of them make sense. You need to have leap years and at least one month different than the others because the solar day won't divide nicely into the year.

But the rest of the time units could be replaced with a decimal system. The solar day for example could be divided up into 10 metric hours, 100 metric minutes in a metric hour, 100 metric seconds in a metric hour. Weeks and months are also arbitrary. There could be 10 solar days in a metric week and 10 metric weeks in a month.

 

[Apple fanboy]

A couple of them of them make sense. You need to have leap years and at least one month different than the others because the solar day won't divide nicely into the year.

But the rest of the time units could be replaced with a decimal system. The solar day for example could be divided up into 10 metric hours, 100 metric minutes in a metric hour, 100 metric seconds in a metric hour. Weeks and months are also arbitrary. There could be 10 solar days in a metric week and 10 metric weeks in a month.

Would people still get the same hourly rate at work?

 

[flat five]

Would people still get the same hourly rate at work?

work 8 days. take 2 off.
; )

(I don't remember the exact details but I think this is one of the reasons why people rejected metric time-- which, btw, did really happen when all of the other metric fixation was happening.. for 12 years or so)

edit- ha, good autocorrect there.. metrificaton I meant

 

[Huntn]

The US military uses the metric system for everything except temperature, their date units are YYYY/MM/DD. Most business in America use YYYY/MM/DD.

But to answer your question, the reason why we don't completely convert is because we don't care that much to be compatible with the rest of the world. We are taught the Imperial system (that we brought from Europe when America was founded) in elementary, middle, and high school. It continues on in college and no one is going to force the citizens to go on the Metric system in consumer facing products.

Some parents aren't willing to have their children learn the Metric system because they don't know the metric system and aren't willing to learn it when their kid asks them what a kilometer is.

Our entire road infrastructure and all published maps are in Imperial units so all road signs and markers would have to be replaced. Americans aren't willing to spend their tax dollars on changing a system that isn't broken for them.

Just as it is hard for people visiting America, it is just as hard for Americans to adjust to other countries. Yes I get the metric system 1, 10, 100, 1000. I understand your point on why it would be better than 4, 8 , 16, 32 oz. or 1, 12, 36 inches and 5280 feet in a mile, but as much effort as people had to put into learning the imperial system they are so worn out on unit conversion that they don't care if it's that simple.
[doublepost=1464792921][/doublepost]

In reality it would be absolutely none, and would probably cost businesses more money since manufacturing companies already use the Imperial system, they would spend a lot of money converting all of their existing in-house programs to the metric system.

I can't say how much it would cost, but I can tell you at some of the companies I've worked for, they do all of their trucking in miles not kilometers, products are made in Fahrenheit, and some manufacturing workers are high school dropouts who only notice when things change and do not know how to react when the numbers aren't showing up correctly, or continue doing what they were used to because someone failed to tell them it changed. 150 Fahrenheit vs 150 Celsius can cost a company upwards of $50,000 before the problem is found and corrected. Also changing 3,000 programs of in-house COBOL or 1.5M lines of code in general will cost a company working hours to convert it all over.

More appropriately is how much are we saving by not going to the metric system. It has no real value other than being on the same page as the rest of the world and the companies that deal in world manufacturing are already using the Metric system.

and some manufacturing workers are high school dropouts who only notice when things change and do not know how to react when the numbers aren't showing up correctly, or continue doing what they were used to because someone failed to tell them it changed.

You've identified an issue discussed in this forum on occasion- human vs automation and education, a problem modern society will be dealing with in the near future I think.

 

[ActionableMango]

work 8 days. take 2 off.
; )

(I don't remember the exact details but I think this is one of the reasons why people rejected metric time-- which, btw, did really happen when all of the other metric fixation was happening.. for 12 years or so)

edit- ha, good autocorrect there.. metrificaton I meant

Interesting, I didn't know there was any actual proponents for metric time other than as a thought experiment.

 

[flat five]

Interesting, I didn't know there was any actual proponents for metric time other than as a thought experiment.

search - French Republican Calender

here's the mobile wiki link.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

and

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

 

[cube]

Julius Caesar started the leap year so we have fluctuating days in a year.

At least it follows simple rules, unlike the way leap seconds need to be added.
[doublepost=1464803522][/doublepost]

For instance the Roman emperor Augustus took one day from February and added that to August because August was a month that was named after him.

Yeah, this is one of the top annoying things in the discussion.

 

[C DM]

Another thing to note is numbering systems were mostly screwed up by the roman and british empire. For instance the Roman emperor Augustus took one day from February and added that to August because August was a month that was named after him. Talk about American's being off. Julius Caesar started the leap year so we have fluctuating days in a year.

At least it follows simple rules, unlike the way leap seconds need to be added.
[doublepost=1464803522][/doublepost]

Yeah, this is one of the top annoying things in the discussion.

Seems like there are a few different theories behind the number of days in February: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-February-have-28-days-Why-29-in-leap-years

However, putting the "why" aside, given that there were some calendar related adjustments made since those days, it seems at least a little odd that something like that wasn't adjusted to some degree to let's say take a day off of August and add it to February or something else similar to that to make things that much closer to following the established pattern, so to say.

 

[cube]

Seems like there are a few different theories behind the number of days in February: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-February-have-28-days-Why-29-in-leap-years

However, putting the "why" aside, given that there were some calendar related adjustments made since those days, it seems at least a little odd that something like that wasn't adjusted to some degree to let's say take a day off of August and add it to February or something else similar to that to make things that much closer to following the established pattern, so to say.

It is still annoying to have 2 consecutive months with 31 days, breaking the alternating pattern.

 

[mildocjr]

and some manufacturing workers are high school dropouts who only notice when things change and do not know how to react when the numbers aren't showing up correctly, or continue doing what they were used to because someone failed to tell them it changed.

You've identified an issue discussed in this forum on occasion- human vs automation and education, a problem modern society will be dealing with in the near future I think.

I don't think it will be as big of an issue, because there is the factor that newer generations are keeping up with technology (not programmatically like we did in the 70s and 80s) but understanding what the hamburger symbol means, being able to pick up cues like this is what will make the difference. Older generations don't pick up these cues as easily, not specifically the hamburger, but in a much larger scale, such as cloud applications and how they can benefit more than running something locally. I'm starting to stretch beyond the scope of this, but my point is, the older generations are phasing out of the workforce and we are currently in this dead zone where older generations are saying "no don't change anything", and younger generations are saying "update, for the love of God update!"

In the case of Automation and Education, it's as simple as this, If a screen requires you to type in a number every 10 seconds lets say 37 which stands for 37 F, and you start typing in 37...37...37...37...and so on... Eventually the number on the screen that you can still see changes to 2.7 C, but since you've been typing in 37...37...37... you've stopped looking at the screen and you only think to type in 37. So now whatever should be at 2.7 C is at 37 C (or 98.6 F) so whatever it is, is now getting cooked.

 

[nj-morris]

A couple of them of them make sense. You need to have leap years and at least one month different than the others because the solar day won't divide nicely into the year.

But the rest of the time units could be replaced with a decimal system. The solar day for example could be divided up into 10 metric hours, 100 metric minutes in a metric hour, 100 metric seconds in a metric hour. Weeks and months are also arbitrary. There could be 10 solar days in a metric week and 10 metric weeks in a month.

That's actually a pretty neat idea. It would be a bit of a mess to turn the whole system around though, because the measurements for time are much more commonly used than measurements of distance, mass, etc.

 

[cube]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

 

[C DM]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-and-date-units.1971601/page-17#post-22958576

 

[Huntn]

I don't think it will be as big of an issue, because there is the factor that newer generations are keeping up with technology (not programmatically like we did in the 70s and 80s) but understanding what the hamburger symbol means, being able to pick up cues like this is what will make the difference. Older generations don't pick up these cues as easily, not specifically the hamburger, but in a much larger scale, such as cloud applications and how they can benefit more than running something locally. I'm starting to stretch beyond the scope of this, but my point is, the older generations are phasing out of the workforce and we are currently in this dead zone where older generations are saying "no don't change anything", and younger generations are saying "update, for the love of God update!"

In the case of Automation and Education, it's as simple as this, If a screen requires you to type in a number every 10 seconds lets say 37 which stands for 37 F, and you start typing in 37...37...37...37...and so on... Eventually the number on the screen that you can still see changes to 2.7 C, but since you've been typing in 37...37...37... you've stopped looking at the screen and you only think to type in 37. So now whatever should be at 2.7 C is at 37 C (or 98.6 F) so whatever it is, is now getting cooked.

I'll pass on having this conversation here as it's off topic tends to lean towards PRSI.

 

[Herdfan]

It is still annoying to have 2 consecutive months with 31 days, breaking the alternating pattern.

Come on. That gives us one more day of summer.

Yes it needs to change. A few years back I was doing a tile project at the house and went to Lowe's to buy a tile cutter. They had a deal on one that was so much less than any other one. Got it home and realized the measurements were metric. Didn't bother me one bit and it has been a good tile cutter.

 

[Precision Gem]

No, I don't live in the US. The reason it is annoying is because I don't want to spend time converting and ****. "Oh, you say you live 50 miles from here? Hang on, lemme grab my calculator real quick...". Why is it so difficult to settle on a single possibility? And I'll repeat what I said, when you have a clean wall (in this case, all countries) with a tiny drop of paint on it (in this case, the US), it feels so distracting you just want to break the entire wall. True, it could just be OCD and paranoia, but I won't use that argument to counter-argument myself.

I heavily disagree. You know how you change a system? It's simple. Make the current system secondary. Make the new system primary. (let's say, write the numbers in miles in a smaller font) Then, at school, force every student born after 20XX to exclusively use the new system. It'll be very annoying at first, but when the first generations are over, soon there will be less and less people that use the old system. I'll bet that in 2100, UK will no longer use the imperial system. Probably much before that. Meanwhile in the US we'll have robot world wars before it happens.

As I mentioned in my post, you are using your system purely out of being used to it. Guess what, I've been used to certain things in life, and when I found out that there's a better solution, I switched to it, even if it was difficult. You can do the same. You're just enforcing your habitudes on yourself instead of thinking "what is better". Also, like I pointed out in my reply just above, you can just teach the newer generation how to do something, and somehow, 100 years later, everything's all fresh again. Sure, if you prefer the imperial units, go ahead, use it, but I hope you realise that there is an alternative that is more suited for actual modern tasks instead for farmers or something.


Also, I love how everyone in this thread is exclusively focused on my take on the imperial system VS metric. Nobody mentioned a thing about Fahrenheit or the awkward date format. It's like they have no argument on this whatsoever so they just leave it at it, lol

The heck with units of measure, what about language! Wouldn't it be nice if everyone spoke English!

I travel to Europe often, and find France the most difficult, most French either can't or won't speak English. The date thing drives me crazy, as I work with a European company, and have to always think twice when I see a date such as: 060416

To me the system in the US makes total sense. When speaking, people will say the date as "June 1st 2016" so why not write it the same way. 6/1/2016

 

[flat five]

When speaking, people will say the date as "June 1st 2016" so why not write it the same way. 6/1/2016

generally, it's only americans who say it like that.. (in turn, we write it like that too)..

others (probably most others) say it the other way.. like:
'remember remember the 5th of November'

----
that said, you bring up an excellent point.
people will say the date as "June 1st 2016"... so why not write it the same way.. "June 1, 2016"

 

[Precision Gem]

No, I don't live in the US. The reason it is annoying is because I don't want to spend time converting and ****. "Oh, you say you live 50 miles from here? Hang on, lemme grab my calculator real quick...". Why is it so difficult to settle on a single possibility? And I'll repeat what I said, when you have a clean wall (in this case, all countries) with a tiny drop of paint on it (in this case, the US), it feels so distracting you just want to break the entire wall. True, it could just be OCD and paranoia, but I won't use that argument to counter-argument myself.

I heavily disagree. You know how you change a system? It's simple. Make the current system secondary. Make the new system primary. (let's say, write the numbers in miles in a smaller font) Then, at school, force every student born after 20XX to exclusively use the new system. It'll be very annoying at first, but when the first generations are over, soon there will be less and less people that use the old system. I'll bet that in 2100, UK will no longer use the imperial system. Probably much before that. Meanwhile in the US we'll have robot world wars before it happens.

As I mentioned in my post, you are using your system purely out of being used to it. Guess what, I've been used to certain things in life, and when I found out that there's a better solution, I switched to it, even if it was difficult. You can do the same. You're just enforcing your habitudes on yourself instead of thinking "what is better". Also, like I pointed out in my reply just above, you can just teach the newer generation how to do something, and somehow, 100 years later, everything's all fresh again. Sure, if you prefer the imperial units, go ahead, use it, but I hope you realise that there is an alternative that is more suited for actual modern tasks instead for farmers or something.


Also, I love how everyone in this thread is exclusively focused on my take on the imperial system VS metric. Nobody mentioned a thing about Fahrenheit or the awkward date format. It's like they have no argument on this whatsoever so they just leave it at it, lol

Changing the system in the US to metric is not a matter of people learning a new system, it would be very very very expensive. Think of the millions of road signs that would need to be changed, then think about steel mills that are tooled up to make structural shapes based on inches, and roll plate to inches. Construction of homes in the US is based on drywall sheets being 8 feet tall, switch these to 2.5 meter sheets and guess what, they wouldn't fit in millions of homes. This goes on and on.

What is really funny is the Europeans think they are not using imperial units, when in reality they are! I work in engineering, and our company has many sites in Europe. They use DN200 pipe and flanges, and think these are some European metric size. The reality is they are using 8 inch pipe and flanges. But the refuse to call them what they are! Their pipe and flanges exactly match US imperial units. There is nothing 200 mm about a DN200 pipe!
[doublepost=1464830998][/doublepost]

generally, it's only americans who say it like that.. (in turn, we write it like that too)..

others (probably most others) say it the other way.. like:
'remember remember the 5th of November'

----
that said, you bring up an excellent point.
people will say the date as "June 1st 2016"... so why not write it the same way.. "June 1, 2016"

My experience dealing with Swedish and French people pretty much daily is they will say it the same way as we do. However they often talk about the "week number". And again this gets crazy, as in 2016 they don't consider January 1 and 2 to be in Week 1. So if you turn on week numbers on your iPhone, or iPad, you will see that Apple considers Week 1 to be the week with January 1st in it. Just like the calendar doesn't start on Sunday, but on Monday.

 

[farmboy]

I was actually thinking food labeling would be one of the places to start with.

Most commercially packaged food in the US has been labeled in metric (and standard) units for many years.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The heck with units of measure, what about language! Wouldn't it be nice if everyone spoke English!

I travel to Europe often, and find France the most difficult, most French either can't or won't speak English. The date thing drives me crazy, as I work with a European company, and have to always think twice when I see a date such as: 060416

To me the system in the US makes total sense. When speaking, people will say the date as "June 1st 2016" so why not write it the same way. 6/1/2016

generally, it's only americans who say it like that.. (in turn, we write it like that too)..

others (probably most others) say it the other way.. like:
'remember remember the 5th of November'

----
that said, you bring up an excellent point.
people will say the date as "June 1st 2016"... so why not write it the same way.. "June 1, 2016"

Personally, given that I grew up in the British Isles, I have no issue with the Imperial system. And, nowadays, I am equally fluent in metric.

However, to me, that mad American way of rendering dates, is something I cannot begin to fathom. Every time I see a date rendered in the US way, I have to blink, think, take stock, mentally rearrange, and yes, curse. (Americans).

As has already been mentioned endlessly on this thread, most Europeans start - both orally and in writing - write the day first, followed by the month. To us, that is logical.

Another thing has struck me about some of the solutions suggested by the thread: It is one thing to devise a splendid system that satisfies the need for internal intellectual consistency on the part of mathematicians and scientists; however, for a system to work, and be accepted widely, it needs to be easy to calculate and work out.

Moreover, it helps if one set of measurements have some coherent system of ordering, or numbering, that enables them to be used consistently.

In all the discussion of the metric system, among the comments and reasons adduced for its popularity, or ease of mastery, the argument that we have ten fingers, and thus, this makes it easy to compute, and calculate, while relevant misses one important point. We had ten fingers in Babylonian times, and indeed, in Roman times, although the Roman system (also based on ten) was replaced by other systems after the collapse of that empire.

To my mind, the key feature which allows a system based on ten to be used so easily, is the invention of the 'zero'. Put a system based on ten - as the Romans had - along with the more complex calculations that 'zero' (a gift from our Arabic friends and their world) allows, and you have a system that makes it very easy to calculate and compute and for everyday use.

 

[flat five]

Another thing has struck me about some of the solutions suggested by the thread: It is one thing to devise a splendid system that satisfies the need for internal intellectual consistency on the part of mathematicians and scientists; however, for a system to work, and be accepted widely, it needs to be easy to calculate and work out.

Moreover, it helps if one set of measurements have some coherent system of ordering, or numbering, that enables them to be used consistently.

In all the discussion of the metric system, among the comments and reasons adduced for its popularity, or ease of mastery, the argument that we have ten fingers, and thus, this makes it easy to compute, and calculate, while relevant misses one important point. We had ten fingers in Babylonian times, and indeed, in Roman times, although the Roman system (also based on ten) was replaced by other systems after the collapse of that empire.

To my mind, the key feature which allows a system based on ten to be used so easily, is the invention of the 'zero'. Put a system based on ten - as the Romans had - along with the more complex calculations that 'zero' (a gift from our Arabic friends and their world) allows, and you have a system that makes it very easy to calculate and compute and for everyday use.

i can't stress it enough that if you were taught to count by twelves instead of ten, it would be just as simple and it would make just as much sense to you regarding zero..

base12 looks like this too:
1
10
100
1000
10000

and you could most certainly do a prefix based measuring system that works exactly like this

and the decimal point moves around in the exact same way.. the whole deal.

in fact, it's even more simple than decimal.. everyday calculations would make more sense and resolve to cleaner numbers on many more occasions than decimal allows.

base12 is most certainly not a numbering system for the intellectual community and/or scientist.. it doesn't matter what base is being used in complex equations.. the mathematics are going to be just as complicated in regards to that.. i'm in no way trying to say something like "we should use base 12 because it's for smart people"..
base12 is for the common everyday human.. base10 is not.. it's too complicated.

---
if you understood base10 and base12 on an equal level and were allowed to make a choice of which one would be the international system to be used by all, i guarantee you (yes YOU as in you exactly Scepticalscribe) would choose base12.

if you understood base10 and base12 on an equal level, i would go so far as to say it would be impossible for you, or anybody else for that matter, to choose a base10 system over base12.. There would be exactly zero reason for you to do this (unless, of course, you still felt it necessary for a numbering system to work well with our built-in calculator, or fingers, at the expense of having a more simple numbering system as a whole... we have much much better calculators available these days).. If it's like grinding teeth hearing an american say 'June second', you would quite literally want to shoot this person in the mouth if you heard them talking in base10.

and look.. i know i can't make you try to understand base12.. i also know i can't make you simply believe what some random dude on the internet is saying.. which puts me at an impasse.
i really don't know how to progress this particular discussion any further.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Look: Apart from the idiotic date format of the US, - where - until I depart from this mortal life, this will be rejected by me - I think - to some extent - we are arguing at cross purposes.

While you say you are not writing for 'smart people', in essence, you are writing for - and to - fellow specialists, and, in a manner that many will feel excluded by. (That is not a criticism - that is how it may be perceived).

Most people are frightened of numbers, - or, at the very least, - do not feel confident in bandying them about, as the joy in simply playing around with numbers - seeing how they interact with one one another and how they relate to one another - has been leached out of them since they were very young while attending school.

Even in our first world, an astonishing (and disgraceful, and shameful) number of youngsters - especially youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds - are barely functionally literate or numerate.

And, because of that, systems that will be broadly accepted are those that people are either familiar with, or comfortable with. Talking about base 12 - unless it is very persuasively argued - will merely serve to frighten the life out of them.

Re calendars, and the measuring of the year, changes are very often as much a reflection of politics, and power, and the idea that time can be measured by more 'advanced' (i.e. enlightened, scientifically aware) ways when there is a regime change, as they are an attempt at an 'objective' measurement of time.

I know that some have mentioned the revolutionary French Republican calendar, but this [particular debate long preceded that - and long succeeded, it, too. Revolutionary Russia changed its calendar (which is why you read of the February/March revolution of 1917, along with the one in October/November 1917); likewise, the Julian calendar was reformed by Rome (the Gregorian calendar) in 1582, - to address anomalies that had arisen over the centuries with the Julian calendar - most Catholic countries falling into line without paying too much heed to the science.

However, Britain, being Protestant, saw this as a Papist plot, and didn't contemplate bringing the calendar of the UK into line with continental practice until the calendar Act of 1750, which took effect fully in 1753.

And, for those who crave uniformity, - and dislike the erratic sequence of the months as currently defined - the idea of a calendar with a 13 month year (of 28 days each) has been around a while. However, I just doubt that it will gain wide acceptance anytime soon.

 

[bunnspecial]

In a thread that's gone on far too long, I'll continue to point out that many European posters seem to think that Americans-as a whole-are completely ignorant of the metric system.

I was taught it in first grade and it was reinforced(along side imperial measures) through elementary and middle school. My high school education was heavily science based, and it was ubiquitous there also.

It actually was in college-particularly in Physics(in which I minored) that I first of all was taught the cohesive of the imperial system, as well as really had it reinforced that THE UNITS DON'T MATTER. I have a masters degree in Chemistry and teach it as the college level as well as working daily in the field. I am quite fluent in the metric system, as I use it daily, and also teach it when I teach lower level classes.

So, again, being someone who does-in daily use-use the both systems, I can use both easily. I just find imperial easier for most purposes in day to day life.

 

[C DM]

In a thread that's gone on far too long, I'll continue to point out that many European posters seem to think that Americans-as a whole-are completely ignorant of the metric system.

I was taught it in first grade and it was reinforced(along side imperial measures) through elementary and middle school. My high school education was heavily science based, and it was ubiquitous there also.

It actually was in college-particularly in Physics(in which I minored) that I first of all was taught the cohesive of the imperial system, as well as really had it reinforced that THE UNITS DON'T MATTER. I have a masters degree in Chemistry and teach it as the college level as well as working daily in the field. I am quite fluent in the metric system, as I use it daily, and also teach it when I teach lower level classes.

So, again, being someone who does-in daily use-use the both systems, I can use both easily. I just find imperial easier for most purposes in day to day life.

Out of curiosity, what makes imperial easier for most purposes in day to day life for you? Is it mostly that that's what's used around where you are in day to day life (and thus metric would then be easier if that was being used around where you are in day to day life)?