B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for March 29, 2013

They claimed that America would be totally converted to the metric system back when I was in elementary school in the ’70’s. I’m glad they were wrong on that!

I wonder how many people actually get this – lol

@AlexYou’re absolutley correct!I meant to type (10cm) ³ =1000cm³

I’m old enough to remember when Americans felt smug and superior about how much simpler it was to use decimal currency, while Brits were still hanging onto pounds, shillings and pence. Now it is the Americans who are hanging onto outdated units of measurement while most of the rest of the world has gone for the simpler, more rational system.

By the way, this is Good Friday. Is it too much to hope that sometime this weekend we will see something with a spiritual message, like Johnny Hart used to produce almost every year? I miss those.

I find the metric system confusing. I’m set in the old system. Why change something that has worked so well for many years? The old way was much better & simpler to understand.

In India, we’re expected to use the metric system by law. We do, for the most part, except for land dealings, where sq. feet, sq. yards, “cents” and acres still rule the roost. As one of the other commenters said, I guess it’s all about visualisation and getting it into your head.

I’m happy using both, one off measurements for imperial and calculations metric… But I’m weird that way ;)

We know all this intellectually but we don’t FEEL it. I can visualize an inch or a foot but centimeters aren’t natural to me.

0.62!

Always remember people saying if metric is so perfect, why do they have a dozen eggs?? Do the chickens care?

That was good … it is amazing on how used to using lb, ft, yd, etc is when you ’ve used it all your life and how hard to convert to metric measurement.

For some, the metric system comes easy; for others, not so much. Neither system is superior to the other, so use what you feel comfortable with. In other words, “tastes great less filling.”

American science, American engineering and the US Army have gone decimal decades ago. It’s time to end the confusion. How many more satellites do have to crash before this medieval system has been given the boot?

A miss is as good as 1.609 kilometers, I always say.

All the metric haters talk about conversion to inches – maybe they should look at how centimeters relate to meters and kilometers and then compare how inches compare to yards and miles.

Dear Canadians: why don’t you ask your countrymen who were on the Gimli Glider about the ease with which your country converted to metric?

I miss Johnny Hart’s Good Friday strips.

Give a man a barleycorn and he’ll take league.

I think both systems have their uses. I really don’t want to see every recipe requiring a kitchen scale.

There’s a saying, Any fool can complicate the simple. It takes a wise man to simplify the complicated.

I believe that there is no puzzle about the contradiction of dollars versus pounds; Simply that we are more comfortable with the system we grew up with, so we don’t want to learn a new system. Never the less, I do wonder why our money system (metric) seems so logical to me — and yet I just can’t get my head around stuff like meters and and liters —oh, wait……I didn’t grow up with them!

Yea, I remember them telling us we would be all metric by now. In MI the DOT started to do all of their engineering drawings for road construction in metric. It lasted about 5 years. When I tune in the Canadian home improvement shows, or Holmes on Homes, I seldom hear a metric dimension, it is always feet and inches. If the US really converted to metric, Imagine the issue with all of the billions of legal property descriptions that are all in feet.

Imagine walking into Home Depot and asking for a 5.08×10.16.

Quit converting Metric to English and English to Metric. You simply USE IT!!. If the recipe says to fill to the 1 L mark and add two eggs, do so. If the speed limit is 100kph then don’t let the needle go over the 100 kph mark. Simple enough. Lived in Germany for 3 years and never had a problem.

The main issue with the metric system is that it was invented by Napoleon. The original meter was 1 millionth the distance from Paris to the North Pole.

Napolean pissed a lot of other countries’ leaders off, so they were slow in adopting his system.

metric visualization is a piece of cake. that is, if you wanna. The main reason we study fractions is so we can utilize our system of measurement.

actually 1000 cc of pure water has a mass of 1 kg at 4 degrees celsius.

I’m just glad I didn’t have to learn metric time. Not sure I could operate on a 10 hour day.

The metric system isn’t so bad. It’s the transition stage that would be tough if we ever changed.

In the US, we’re just waiting for the next " bright idea" to come along.

How does the song involving the “16 pound hammer” sound if sung in metric?

Was metric based on Paris to North Pole or the Equator to the North Pole? Interesting since no one have been to NP yet.

I’m young enough to remember that NASA crashed a 2 billion dollar Mars mission because, even though the satalite was build by the European Space Agency, some rocket scientist forgot to convert meters/second into feet/second. With international cooperation in the space industry, why NASA did not convert to the metric system 2 decades ago is beyond me.

From another Rees who has lived many places in the world, I say “bravo” to Alan. In Hong Kong, when they made the final switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius temperatures, it was difficult at first, because of what we were used to, but I quickly learned to relate the way I felt to the temperature that they reported. Likewise, we all are used to international track and field events now being in meters rather than yards, and here in the US, we already know how much pop we will get in a 2-liter bottle! The only reason that the US has not switched over to metric for most measurements is because the government has kowtowed to those who complain about having to adjust their own thinking rather than making things simpler for future generations. And if an archaic measurement is more useful for some things than for others, so be it. As a typesetter, I have become used to using picas and points, and find 2p6 (2 picas and 6 points, or 30 points) more useful for alignments on a page as long as type size is still given in points. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t adapt as easily to making adjustments by the millimeter. BTW, unless things have changed since 1986, when I left HK the last time, the vendors in the markets used catties to weigh fresh veggies.

Why didn’t we? Be cause things are fine JUST as they are. Take examples from Europe? No, thank you!

Actually, 1609.344 meters.

Sorry, N-G…Pew cites Christians as 32% of world population, largest, but not a majority. http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape.aspx

And a liter is 61 and change cubic inches, which is how you get 427 out of 7 liters. Hooray for 427’s!!

“If tomorrow all you had to deal with were centimeters, deciliters and kilometers you would switch over fast. As long as you don’t have to you never will.”-———————-I wonder if you either misunderstood what I wrote somewhere, or have me confused with someone else, because what you say here is basically my own position. With every unit that I use regularly I got used to it quickly and easily. The ones where I still think in the old units are a few that I seldom need to use.

Egyptians built pyramids without the benefit of either system.

If they wanted Americans to use the Metric system, why didn’t they make the conversion logical. At least, make the Meter equal a whole number of inches, like 40 or 96 (1-1/2 fathoms).

Fahrenheit started by dividing the difference between the freezing and boiling points of fresh water at sea level into 180 degrees, since like 24 hours, it can be divided evenly in more ways than 100 can. Then, he made Zero degrees be the coldest temperature he observed in his home town, and luckily, the freezing point of water was an even number of degrees from that on his scale.

One (1) American gallon = 3.78 litres. Its slightly different if converting from Imperial to metric.

the metric system is so much easier than the imperial. Metric units have prefixes (such as centi) taht indicate the multiplier