Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?

[JeffyTheQuik]

Okay guys, this is probably my angry 1 AM self again posting here, but this is something that has been bothering me for a few weeks now. I am posting it here because I know this is a website primarily of American people, and I don't know who else to rant this about.
<Rant against the measurement system deleted, to save space...>
Thank you.

A few rebuttals...

This is like complaining that the water faucets some person's house are reversed. It works for them, and when they go out, they have to remember that cold is on the right, and hot on the left, but it's their problem, until you go in their house, and when you're in there, demanding that they change all their plumbing to make you happy, and making you happy will make them happy, when they're already there, and it's not a big deal to them. (your happiness or the placement of the water faucets)

What fascinates me is the mixing of the two in flying...
For every 1000 feet you go up, the temperature drops by 2° C.
Standard Pressure is 15° C and 29.92" Hg
SA reports that have temperature in Fahrenheit, pressure in millibars and " Hg, visibility in statute miles, and windspeed in knots. Weather reports, probably the most critical for flying VFR, are a hodgepodge of whatever the person that originally put them together felt like using, or whatever gauge they had at the time.

As for the time thing, the SI unit is the second. The next unit up is the minute, which is 60 seconds, then 60 of those is an hour, and 24 of those is a day, and then, 365 of those is a year, except every fourth one, which is 366 days, except on century marks not divisible by 400. Why does the metric system not have an base 10 version of time, and has all these crazy non repeating grouping of units? I know there are milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds, but why are there no kiloseconds, megaseconds, and gigaseconds? It seems that the Metricioners have only done a half job here.

I would (if I cared) use the effort that you've put into your castigation of America's measurement system to have all of the metric countries straighten out this deficiency. While we're at it, can we get the weeks to be 10 days, and months to be 10 weeks? This would help immensely with the calculations of how long it is from now to Christmas, and we won't have to do that knuckle thing when figuring out how many days a particular month has.
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Relax, the U.S. uses both systems, but the populace still prefers the English system for product volume and weight. For decades there has been talk of switching over to metric totally, but it's just never happened. I do enjoy seeing a gallon of milk and a gallon of gas. Although English is the standard in food and liquids for weight and volume, for most (all?) commercial products, metric is used for manufacturing and science. In aviation, science, and manufacturing, centigrate is used.

And the date gets written either way, but I see no reason AT ALL to write the year first, lol. Day and month are more important to scheduling than the year whether you say day/month or month/day. There is no real argument here other than personal preference why one is better than the other.

I write the date as day/month because if I use 8May16, I can avoid using a comma (such as May 8, 2016) but I'd still pronounce that as May 8th because it sounds better to me. I use all numbers on at the end of a computer file names where I want to designate the date. I'd write 050816 (month/day/year) or 0516 (month/year). Ultimately for date, I see no argument that holds for one way or the other, other than personal preference. For you entire post, you seem most hung up over this.

I like YYYY_MM_DD, as it makes sorting on the computer really easy. (I guess hitting the "sort by date" thing is pretty easy too...

For posted Driving speeds, I much prefer English, cause that's what I'm used to, although in aviation we use knots for speed and measure distance in miles, lol.

...and like I posted above, for every 304.8M, the temperature drops 2° C doesn't have the same ring as the 1000'/2° C thing.

 

[SHNXX]

It's true. It makes no sense.
But for weight it's kind of nice.
Since 1LB is only around 0.42kg, this allows for finer tracking of weight using normal scales.

 

[bunnspecial]

While we're at it, I have two wrenches in my tool box marked 7/16" on the side. One is American(or SAE) while the other is British(BSW). The jaw width is not the same on them.

Anyone want to take a stab at why that is? And, if you care to look it up, I'd appreciate any arguments for why one system might be better than the other. I certainly know which I prefer, but I'm in a position of having to deal with both of them when I'm working on my British car.

Like I've been saying all thread, you just have to roll with the punches and often times accept the way things are done in a certain place rather than trying to change the way it's done.

 

[garirry]

As for the time thing, the SI unit is the second. The next unit up is the minute, which is 60 seconds, then 60 of those is an hour, and 24 of those is a day, and then, 365 of those is a year, except every fourth one, which is 366 days, except on century marks not divisible by 400. Why does the metric system not have an base 10 version of time, and has all these crazy non repeating grouping of units? I know there are milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds, but why are there no kiloseconds, megaseconds, and gigaseconds? It seems that the Metricioners have only done a half job here.

Here's the problem, the problem with time and dates is that almost all of them are based on existing intervals of the Earth and around it. 24 hours is the approximate time for the earth to rotate. 28 days (almost a month) is the approximate time for the moon to rotate around itself and the earth. 365 days is the approximate time for the earth to rotate around the sun. Getting them to match up is a pain in the ass. So you have to find a way that allows for each day to be the exact same length every time, each year to be the exact same (if not counting leap years) length every time, then somehow make so that the moon gets to partially synchronise with the months, and then on top of that, find some kind of divisor that allows you to have the same second length, and then find multipliers that will allow you to have proper multipliers of 10 for each unit. It's VERY difficult to create something completely new, and for now, everybody just stuck with the current time system and the Gregorian calendar.

If the US is still present by the time a new time and date system is placed, they will still probably be the very late adopters so you have no right to tell us what to do on this matter.

 

[Renzatic]

It's VERY difficult to create something completely new, and for now, everybody just stuck with the current time system and the Gregorian calendar.

Add in the fact that the Earth doesn't spin at the same speed consistently, and your already confusing situation is now even more confusing.

 

[flyinmac]

Here's the problem, the problem with time and dates is that almost all of them are based on existing intervals of the Earth and around it. 24 hours is the approximate time for the earth to rotate. 28 days (almost a month) is the approximate time for the moon to rotate around itself and the earth. 365 days is the approximate time for the earth to rotate around the sun. Getting them to match up is a pain in the ass. So you have to find a way that allows for each day to be the exact same length every time, each year to be the exact same (if not counting leap years) length every time, then somehow make so that the moon gets to partially synchronise with the months, and then on top of that, find some kind of divisor that allows you to have the same second length, and then find multipliers that will allow you to have proper multipliers of 10 for each unit. It's VERY difficult to create something completely new, and for now, everybody just stuck with the current time system and the Gregorian calendar.

If the US is still present by the time a new time and date system is placed, they will still probably be the very late adopters so you have no right to tell us what to do on this matter.

I guess we'll just have to convince the universe, the solar system, the moon, the sun, and the Earth to rotate and move around each other in a fashion more compatible with multiples of ten. Then we can get the whole universe to adopt the metric system.

On the plus side, when they come looking for the people who messed everything up, we'll probably find the answer to whether there is in-fact other living beings out there.

The down side, is that they'll be quite angry with us for screwing with their established method of calculating dates and times.

The plus side to that, is that we'll be able to blame the extinction of the human race on the metric system instead of global warming.

 

[Micky Do]

This says it all:

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What is interesting about this thread - apart from the premise - is the defensive tone adopted by some of the Americans who have replied. A metric based system is a lot easier to calculate and use; it is not an act of treason to be able to admit to that.

Personally, I grew up with one, and have had to learn the other, - and increasingly work in environments where the metric is used, so I use both.

On temperature, I m equally conversant with both; years ago, in college, for fun, I decided to learn off both tables, so I can convert at will. Fahrenheit allows for a greater degree of precise measurement, but Celsius is a lot easier to use and remember, and enjoys far greater usage worldwide.

Distance, - and speed measurements (mph versus km/h) - likewise, I use both, and am equally fluent in both. Volume (litres versus pints), is another area where both are used. And yes, height, - again, I use both.

However, one area I really do not 'get' the US usage - at all - is that of how to write a date. This is bonkers, as, quite simply, it defies logic. The usage of dd/mm/yyyy, to my mind, makes a lot more, and is how I have always written dates.

Likewise, grew up with Imperial units……. and wondered why the US used some measurements that were inconsistent (e.g. Imperial gallon v US gallon). Changed to metric (SI) system, which is much easier to learn and work with, but in practice I still use both. A bit like being bilingual, I guess (which I am).

Interestingly though, the US units are now defined in SI units; have been for many years.

Likewise, I just don't get US style for dates, which is illogical and at odds with the rest of the English speaking countries, as well as many non English speaking ones. "dd/mm/yy" is the norm for most places I have been. Some, such as Japan use the reverse "yy/mm/dd", but the US goes it alone with its own style. Weird.

 

[HDFan]

If you look at Wikipedia you'll see that in 1975 the U.S. actually started a metric conversion. I remember seeing road signs in metric units on the interstate. However it died due to public resistance and funding issues.

After that it gets more complicated with various groups recommending and using different standards.

My favorite line from the article:

"Patrick D. Gallagher, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, provided the official response stating that customary units were defined in the metric system, thus making the nation "bilingual" in terms of measurement systems.[18] Gallagher also said that using the metric system was a choice to be made by individuals.[18]"

So clearly we have the superior system since we are fluent in both and we allow freedom of choice!

 

[nightcap965]

Temperature is easy:
Thirty's hot
Twenty's nice
Ten is cold
Zero's ice.

We already use metric for many liquid measures (you can't buy a fifth of booze, but you can buy 750 ml or a liter.).

Our cars already come with kph and mph displays.

So let's just catch up with the rest of the world already. It's not rocket science.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

Here's the problem, the problem with time and dates is that almost all of them are based on existing intervals of the Earth and around it. 24 hours is the approximate time for the earth to rotate. 28 days (almost a month) is the approximate time for the moon to rotate around itself and the earth. 365 days is the approximate time for the earth to rotate around the sun. Getting them to match up is a pain in the ass. So you have to find a way that allows for each day to be the exact same length every time, each year to be the exact same (if not counting leap years) length every time, then somehow make so that the moon gets to partially synchronise with the months, and then on top of that, find some kind of divisor that allows you to have the same second length, and then find multipliers that will allow you to have proper multipliers of 10 for each unit. It's VERY difficult to create something completely new, and for now, everybody just stuck with the current time system and the Gregorian calendar.

If the US is still present by the time a new time and date system is placed, they will still probably be the very late adopters so you have no right to tell us what to do on this matter.

Ha! You telling me what my rights are makes me laugh. I have every right to tell you what to do, just as you have every right to complain about the US not tilting at your windmill. What we do about it is entirely up to us, not you.

Again, all those things that you cited for the US doing what you demand is the same as us converting everything to metric. PINTA, yep. Everyone stuck in the current system... yep. Very difficult... yep.

Now you how we think about it.

Again, why is this so important to you that we change our water faucets to make you happy?

 

[garirry]

Again, why is this so important to you that we change our water faucets to make you happy?

Because being used to my faucet and traveling to the houses of hundreds of millions of people who use a well is not convenient. (by traveling, I am analogising with talking to different people on the Internet)

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

Because being used to my faucet and traveling to the houses of hundreds of millions of people who use a well is not convenient. (by traveling, I am analogising with talking to different people on the Internet)

This sounds like your problem, not mine. You must be a fun guest when others' decor is not to your standards.

Just a note on this whole topic. When I go abroad, I don't complain that:
People in Germany don't speak English (or American) to me.
People in Singapore don't serve me in 16oz cups.
The hardware stores in France don't have 1/4-20 screws.
The gas stations in Mexico don't have 2 gallon gas cans.
The people in Italy look at me in horror (at first) when I tell them my son had a 101° fever, but we both laugh at the mis-understanding.

What I've learned by listening to others and learning about new things:
The Germans have an awesome sense of humor, and when you come into their house, expect to have best friends for life.
The Singaporeans are very caring, and will bring you a basket of fruit if you happen to wind up in the hospital.
The French love Americans that attempt to speak French, and appreciate the beauty in their cities.
The people of Mexico will work hard to make sure that you are happy, and walk with you to make sure you're OK when you run out of gas.
The people in Italy will take care of you and your family when your son is sick.

But then again, you might want to try a different tactic than self-righteous tirades. Calling the people of America "well users" and "backward" because they don't use your preferred system, and then saying "IT'S TOO HARD!!!" when I point out the inconsistency of time in Metric. However, I do have a solution:
Re-define the second as 0.864 of an American Second (that way, your bile can still be retained towards our "backwardness")
This way, you can have:
100 metric seconds would be a hectosecond
10 metric hectoseconds would be a kilosecond
100 kiloseconds would be a 100 kiloseconds (Ha! caught you!)

If you have a job, you'd work 33 kiloseconds, and then go home, to the pub, or whatever. Since the rest of the world went metric so easily, this should be a breeze! Just change all the clocks at midnight one January 1, and there you go!

Plus, with the months, there is a solution there too:
Since the lunar calendar doesn't match the current calendar, we should just ditch it, and not use it as a basis of timekeeping, so let's go:
1 Megasecond would be the base unit for the grouping of 100 kilosecond periods (American term: Day) and, I'm sorry to say, and will use temperature for the "out" on this one, since body temperature is 37°, so there's a little wiggle room here,
3 Megaseconds will be financial periods (gotta keep the banks happy...)
There are 36 Megaseconds in a year, and to keep things on track, every other year, there will be 37 of them, and on the 40th years, there are 38 Megasecond periods.

Honestly, this is a much more efficient system, and if you don't like it, you must be wanting to live in the past, and not capable of tying your shoes (even loafers), or using the restroom without assistance.

Now, you must be saying to yourself (and you spectators are probably too...) "what a jerk!" "Just because you don't agree with this guy, you must have some mental deficiency", and to that, I say, "that is my point." Our system works for us, and unless compelled to, we're not going to change.

Seriously, if this is the hill you want to die on, this really isn't a 1am rant, but a deep personal need to control others to make yourself happy, but I think the odds are, you won't be, even if McDonald's changed their signature burger to the 113.4 grammer.

 

[0000757]

I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but while I think the metric system is great for measurements (weight, height, distance, etc.), the one situation it does NOT make sense is when determining weather.

In the metric system (based on water), -10 is pretty cold, 0 is cold, 60 is INSANELY hot, and 100 is EXTREMELY hot
in the Fahrenheit system (based on the human body), -10 is very cold, 0 is pretty cold, 60 is middle ground, and 100 is pretty hot.

To me, when talking about weather, it makes way more sense to say 0 is cold, 60 is medium, and 100 is hot, than it is to say that -10 is cold, 15.5 is medium, and 37.8 is hot.

 

[garirry]

I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but while I think the metric system is great for measurements (weight, height, distance, etc.), the one situation it does NOT make sense is when determining weather.

In the metric system (based on water), -10 is pretty cold, 0 is cold, 60 is INSANELY hot, and 100 is EXTREMELY hot
in the Fahrenheit system (based on the human body), -10 is very cold, 0 is pretty cold, 60 is middle ground, and 100 is pretty hot.

To me, when talking about weather, it makes way more sense to say 0 is cold, 60 is medium, and 100 is hot, than it is to say that -10 is cold, 15.5 is medium, and 37.8 is hot.

Normally, for Celsius, it's -20 is insanely cold, -10 is very cold, 0 is cold, 10 is a bit cold, 20 is comfortable, 30 for hot, and 40 for insanely hot. But I see your point.

 

[cqexbesd]

Why does the metric system not have an base 10 version of time, and has all these crazy non repeating grouping of units?

I on't know if thats a serious question (or why I have wasted my life reading this thread) but Wikipedia has some of the hostly of metric and decimal time.

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

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I live in the metric system and while the Imperial system is somewhat annoying due to having to convert stuff, at least the conversion in that case is unambigous, unlike when we get to the abomination that is the MM/DD/YYYY date format.

Seriously, who came up with that BS? Either go up the container chain starting from the day or down starting from the year, but for the love of whatever you believe in, don't have any second thoughts while writing the damn date. Due to this date format, whenever I see a date that uses slashes as the separator and where the day is in the range of 1-12, I need to rely on one or more external factors to deduce which item is the day and which is the month. In a perfect world we'd have nothing but ISO 8601 </rant>

'Abomination'? I must say that I really like that word……and yes, in this context, cannot but agree.

Very enjoyable thread, by the way.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

obama nation

Oh, dear.

Sigh. No, I hate to have to break it to you, but the noun 'abomination' does not, in fact, mean - even when mispronounced - 'Obama nation'.

But, still, notwithstanding this momentary little distraction and diversion, a fascinating thread….

 

[monokakata]

I've used both systems. I spent a couple of years doing land surveying in the rainforest -- I used metric (SI) units for distance and area, but stuck with 360 degrees for angles, because that's what my British theodolite read out in. It didn't take me long to get used to it.

But when making things, particularly carpentry, there's just no comparison. Within the last month I've been calling out to other workers things like "I've got 3/16 here and I need you to widen the next cut by 7/8," and had everything stop while we worked out what 3/16 plus 7/8 was. Of course we could do it, sure. But (and these aren't mean to be equivalent numbers) how much easier and less error-prone would be it to call out, "I've got 15 mm here and I need you to widen the next cut by 22 mm." It you can add 15 and 22, you're done. No conversion. Metric carpentry is wonderful until, of course, you have to add on stock timber that's not metric. Well, there's 5 mm ply.

Living in a place where there are many tourists from foreign countries who need directions, and where we like to be helpful, I often find myself standing by the side of the road mentally converting miles into kilometers so that the distances will make sense to them.

 

[bunnspecial]

If you want a really convoluted set of measurements, go shopping for tires.

The last set of tires I bought were 185-70R14 86H.

185 indicates the tread width in mm
70 indicates the sidewall height as a percentage of the tread width
"R" means radial(tire construction that is now virtually universal in car tires)
14 is the rim diameter(inside diameter) in inches.

86T is a service code for the tire, with 86 indicating the load index(higher number=higher load, 86 is 1168lbs) and T indicating the speed rating. T means that the tire can sustain a speed of 119mph. The further you go up the alphabet the higher the speed rating, with the exception of H(130mph) being slotted between U and V. H is for "high speed" and when the scale was first developed it was thought this is where the scale would top out. After the "V" rating(149mph) you get into Z ratings which are "over 149mph." Realizing that this wasn't exact enough, you now have W for 168 mph and Y for 186mph.

In any case, the size looks like a jumble of numbers to someone not use to looking at them. In the case of this particular tire I was looking at, the original size of tire for the car(165-80R14) isn't readily available in the US and the size I bought is a commonly used substitution because it's very close in diameter to the original. I've actually just discovered that the OEM tire for my car(Pireli Centurato CA67) is still made but I've only been able to find it through one specialty supplier in the US. The price per tire is also over double what I paid for my nice, modern tread design(not 100% 1960s tire technology like the Pireli) available at most any national supplier tires.

In any case, I can do the tire diameter calculation pretty quickly(to see how close a substitution is to OEM diameter) but it's a lot of number juggling and I have a hard time doing it without a calculator. I went to look at a car with a friend a few weeks back that had aftermarket wheels and tires, and my friend got quite a bit of amusement out of watching me squat down next to the tire and punch numbers into a calculator to see if they'd kept the size reasonably close in the swap.

 

[jerwin]

Exactly, it's much more logical than a platinum-iridium bar that someone made two scratches on or a platinum-iridium cylinder then locking them in a vault in Paris.

But the pound, and the yard, and the other units of the imperial system were also defined by artifacts. Now, of course, they are most often defined in relation to SI units.

 

[Micky Do]

But the pound, and the yard, and the other units of the imperial system were also defined by artifacts. Now, of course, they are most often defined in relation to SI units.

Not "most often"….. they are defined in relation to SI units!

 

[0388631]

What an odd rant. Cooking wise, I prefer grams. There's an issue with some cookbooks here stating to use, for example, 3 cups of peeled green zucchini. I could make 1 zucchini from the garden fit into 3 cups, but I can also make 4 zucchinis also fit into those 3 cups.

 

[xtshabi]

As someone who uses both systems, I do see that metric is a superior system and measurements such as "feet" sound barbaric, but for certain things, such as temperature or weight, the fine scale allow us to discuss measurements without decimals, which make for easy communication.

 

[flyinmac]

Living in a place where there are many tourists from foreign countries who need directions, and where we like to be helpful, I often find myself standing by the side of the road mentally converting miles into kilometers so that the distances will make sense to them.

Why convert? It's more fun to confuse....

Tell them that the place they are looking for is: 3/4 of a 1/2 kilo mile past the 10th telephone pole south of the barn 10 metric feet north of chicken you see yonder there.

 

[bunnspecial]

Why convert? It's more fun to confuse....

Tell them that the place they are looking for is: 3/4 of a 1/2 kilo mile past the 10th telephone pole south of the barn 10 metric feet north of chicken you see yonder there.

That's a bit like giving or receiving directions in a small town or in the country. "Go up yonder a ways and make a right turn at the road right at the corner where Farmer Smith's barn burned down 20 years ago and keep going until you pass by where Farmer Johnson use to live."

Another random thought along those lines...

If you travel in or around major cities, one of the things you go to appreciate are the 30 second traffic reports that you catch on your car radio. Most of these are pretty short and reference things like exit names, road names and landmarks rather than mileposts or exit numbers. For example, in Louisville you might hear "65 north is backed up from hospital curve into the junction." Many of these can be complete gibberish if you don't travel into the area regularly, but are a nice, short way of phrasing things that's useful to locals if they're deciding on a route to or from work(or whatever point A to B destination you're trying to travel). This sort of falls into the "when in Rome" discussion that could sum up a good part of this thread.