I’ve posted about the metric system before, and now I want to revisit the topic because I think it’s important to the United States. The US is one of very few countries that don’t use the metric system of measurements for most of the common functions we have. We measure distances in feet and yards and miles, volume in quarts and gallons, weights in ounces and pounds and tons, all constituting a hodgepodge of numbers and values we have to keep in our minds just to convert one to another. There are five thousand two hundred and eighty feet in a mile. Without going into how that number came about, it’s basically an absurd value to have to use to get from feet to miles. Two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon, sixteen ounces in a pound, two thousand pounds in a ton—the conversion values are almost limitless. And that’s not to mention the conversion from the US system to the metric system!
As a scientist, I used the metric system universally and consistently while I was working. It’s far more logical since it’s based on the number ten (10) or multiples of 10 such as one hundred or one thousand. Ten millimeters in a centimeter, ten centimeters in a decimeter, ten decimeters in a meter, a thousand meters in a kilometer, and so forth. One thousand milliliters in a liter, one thousand milligrams in a gram, one thousand grams in a kilogram, etc., etc., etc. The only metric system we use regularly in the US that springs to mind right now is the way we measure lamp bulbs. We use watts, which is actually a metric measure of the power produced by something. A 100-watt light bulb, for example, puts out a certain amount of heat and light. (Actually, those terms started when the most common light bulb was “incandescent,” that is, it produced light and heat from the heating of a metal filament. Today’s fluorescent and LED bulbs don’t produce nearly as much heat and use much less electricity, and so the “wattage” you may see on the bulb is simply a measure of the light produced by a bulb in comparison to how much light an incandescent bulb produced. Confusing, isn’t it?)
In the US we measure power in horsepower. That has got to be one of the most ridiculous measures we use. Why should we relate our cars to the equivalent that someone thought a horse could do? (By the way, one horsepower is equal to 746 watts. Now go figure how many watts your car is.)
Only one highway that I’m aware of in the US is measured in metric. That’s Interstate 19 in southern Arizona which runs from Nogales north to Tucson.
It’s time the US got on the metric bandwagon and converted to all-metric system. The conversion will be extremely difficult, I realize that, but it would be better and easier for the US to be in line with most of the rest of the world. The usual argument is that the metric system is “too difficult to understand and use.” So say those against it. But in fact, the metric system is much easier to use because of the way it is structured. I think those opposed to the metric system are worried, not so much about the system itself, but about the conversion, which, admittedly, would be massively difficult and take a lot of time. But I think it would be worth it in the long run.
Something I realized while researching for this post, and curious for those of us who use inches and feet and yards and miles, is that we never measure anything in a vertical dimension in yards. We measure distances in all four, but a building is measured in feet, so is a mountain. Astronauts go into space in miles, sometimes in feet, and airplanes fly in feet above the ground, but never yards. I’ve never seen a mountain measured in yards, nor heard of the depth of the ocean measured in yards. The Titanic is two miles down, or over ten thousand feet, not 3300 yards. Two common sports that I’m aware of, American-type football (called “gridiron” elsewhere) and golf use yardage all the time, but those are horizontal measurements. The height a golf ball reaches above the ground is measured in feet, but the distance it flies is in yards. The metric system doesn’t have any equivalent to the “foot”, so it uses meters. Thus, Mount Everest is 29,035 feet, or 8850 meters. But not in yards. Has anyone ever heard of a vertical measurement in yards?