we do! one inch is exactly 25.4 mm. fluid volumes are almost always seen in both standard measure and metric. most disposable plastic water bottles contain 500 mL of water. lots of engineering for american stuff is actually using metric measures too, including automobiles!
other places use the standard measure as well. in canada, you’ll construct something with 2x4s and 4’x8’ sheets of OSB. in the UK, oh goodness… it’s a complete catastrophe. you’ll see distances in kilometers but speeds in miles per hour, and don’t even get started on stuff like body weight measured in stone, or the breakfast cup (these are actual, real units!)
a very good example is altitudes of aircraft. except for russia, china, and some ex-soviet nations, it will be in feet (or hundreds of feet; “flight level” 320 is 32 000 feet!). this holds true from the bahamas to japan to lithuania. the speed unit knot is a bit weirder, doesn’t neatly fit into either boat (pun absolutely intended), and is worthy of its own write-up.
whatever units you use, really our main suggestions would be to follow in the footsteps of the SI (even if using non-SI/non-metric units), be clear, and be consistent!!
stay safe and happy measuring :)
Because “‘MURICA” okay?
As a science teacher, when I see a worksheet online mention inches or pounds, that open tab on my browser closes at a rapid speed.
because they industrialized before metricalization and it would’ve been incredibly expensive to convert all their machines and tooling to metric afterwards. same reason as the UK. a lot of places industrialized later, in metric from the start, and didnt have this problem.
and then they became the hegemon, and didnt have to convert, because fuck you, why should i cooperate with vassals.
the US will convert to metric when it sinks to the level it deserves and the customary units become a pain because nobody else is willing to deal with them and all the importable equipment is in metric.
Originally it was because the ship carrying the official metric measures from France to the US in 1793 was captured by pirates. More recently it’s because there was a near-revolt when Jimmy Carter tried to reintroduce it in the 1970s in an attempt to make the US even slightly less regressive.
That reminds me of a road in AZ that had signage in KM when I was a kid. I guess it was a part of this program and it never got changed back? It was always a mindfuck suddenly seeing kms instead of miles on road trips through the area.
It’s still there
Interesting, I always thought it was because it goes straight to Mexico, so many people using it would prefer kilometer. Cool to see my local highway on Lemmy.
There was a stretch of the Florida coast that had metric in the late 90s and early 2000s, but people kept stealing the speed limit signs. They also had a problem with people misunderstanding 100kph (about 60mph) and doing 100mph instead.
“Misunderstanding”. They just wanted to speed
I’m assuming 2L soda bottles are also a remnant of this era.
Yeah. The attempt was made to convert everything to metric for official government documents, but that just meant most businesses paid people to convert it back for their use.
USA uses both, just like the UK and Canada. It’s standard in the states for…medicine, the military, science, and… two-liter beverage bottles.
Soft drinks in general. A can is 255ml, a bottle is 500ml, a big bottle is 2L
Convenience store wise, a can of Coke is 12 ounces and a bottle is 20 ounces in the states. They have the volume in ml on the bottle though.
Grocery stores have 1l, 16.9oz, 12oz bottles, and 7.5oz cans.
It’s all over the map.
Containers of Specific Volumes For industry.
Ah yes, CSVFI.
355 for the standard aluminum can irc
Could have sworn it was 330
330 is perhaps the most common standard can size in Europe (other common ones being 250, 500, and for beer also 440 and 568 ml). Most drinks that I see that are imported from the USA have strange can (or bottle) sizes, 355 ml being the only one I remember off the top of my head. But I don’t buy them often because A) imperialism and B) they’re expensive.
I can tell you that the military doesn’t use it much in my experience in aircraft maintenance. I rarely ever saw a repair manual use metric.
Because my car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I like it!
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Because the entire country has a foot fetish.
Fact Check: TRUE ✅
It is even worse as there are two feet.
Technically they do. The US units are defined by the metric system, and they are full members of the Metre Convention since 1878.
Americans aren’t taught the metric system in school in a way that would force them to understand why it’s better. American education rarely teaches life skills, and in my case, almost none at all even though I was a full honors student at a top high school.
Americans absolutely are taught the metric system.
Source: was once in elementary school
Officially, we’re the only ones still using imperial units. But, the British use a mash-up of units in their daily lives, as does Liberia and Myanmar.
Reagan pulled the plug on our attempted conversion in 1980.
We’ll convert someday, probably after our imperial reign is over, somewhat fittingly.
Except it’s not imperial units, it’s US customary. Similar names, different actual quantities.
We’re a stupid country rules by assholes and morons.
You just know if someone tried to make a serious push for it, all the fox news types would go into a frenzy. It’d be an easy way to whip up their idiot base.
Not the only country Liberia uses the imperial system too.
I think its more odd that many countries use a mix (e.g. the UK with units like stones and some lengths in imperial while others are not)
It’s mainly older people that use imperial in my experience. Though we still have things like miles for roads.
I only know this because of Archer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIWDVuHDpq0
The US uses the metric system. SI units are provided by Federal Government for almost every quantifiable product produced by a federal agency and its been like that for decades. Often they use a mix of customary and SI units, providing conversions between the two in official reports. Generally you see customary units communicated when work more directly impacts the general public with more technical work using the SI system. Many industrial fields use predominantly the metric system as is the case for medicine and many engineering fields.
The US does not use, exclusively, the metric system because many units had been adopted by convention prior to the formalization of the modern international SI system and for cultural or historic reasons people don’t want to change.
That’s not so different from other places where measurement systems in common use are often retained.
The metric system debate is, for me, one of the most interesting cultural bugbears on the internet. Because it does not really matter that much what system of measurement a nation uses, its really not going to impact your life that much at the end of the day. Particularly in the modern era where conversion is as trivial as looking up a calculator online. But for whatever reason people get huffy about the metric system.
You seem to be well informed. I have no knowledge of what units are used formally, or in engineering or so, but often when I read news from the USA where measures are present, I find that they sometimes use the imperial units, and sometimes “the asteroid of the size of 5 football fields” or “a hole of the size of 4 washing machines opened in the road”.
That being said, it’s likely a journalism issue. Clickbaits matter more than accuracy. That unfortunately holds true not just for the USA…
This message is half a screen long.
It’s actually about a quarter of a screen (for my phone anyway)
It’s a journalism thing, I think. I’ve never heard anyone in conversation say things like that. I have heard people describe things like that when someone says “Well, how long is x in, mm, ft, km, etc.” “It’s about this many of that long” or whatever.
Nation of proud morons. Most of them do unofficially anyway
