posted on Dec, 12 2008 @ 03:38 AM
I know what some people are thinking: "We tried that in the '70s, and it didn't work." or "The metric system is stupid, we can measure fine." or
"The metric system is un-American, we can't use it! English system all the way! USA! USA!" I'm hoping to dispel some of these myths and hopefully
initiate some discussion.
To begin, a little background on the metric system. It was created in France some three centuries ago (there has been evidence otherwise; France was
the first country to successfully implement its version of the metric system) and was based on the Earth, which brings me to my first point:
1 - The metric system is easier
Those in other countries will understand this, those in the United States might not be so familiar. The metric system is based off of the Earth. It
was designed to be 1/10,000,000th of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. This way, if you needed to, you could reproduce the meter. It
wasn't very practical, but if someone really needed to, it could be done.
That covered length. Now they needed something to measure volume. They made a 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube and called it the liter.
And that was volume. Now they needed weight or mass. They filled that cube with water and called it the kilogram (due to historical reasons it is the
only base unit to have a prefix).
And these are the only base metric units that one would encounter in daily life.
2 - The English system is harder
Let's say you have a distance of 5 miles. How many feet is that? Can you do that in your head in 3 seconds? Maybe, if you're a whiz at mental math.
How about inches? It's tougher. What about furlongs? Or leagues? Or fathoms? How about rods, poles, links, chains, or yards? Good luck. And what kind
of miles are they? International? Nautical? Statute? We can't even agree on the same mile!
Let's try that again in metric. Say you have a distance of 5 kilometers. How many meters is that? Well, kilo means thousand, so 5 kilometers has to
be 5,000 meters. That's all. The only unit for length is the meter, nothing else. There are prefixes that make the meter larger (with powers of 10)
or smaller (with negative powers of 10). 5 kilometers, expressed in the 7 most known forms, would be:
I'm not even going to try that with miles.
3 - The metric system is un-American!
This one is my favorite, because it is the most ignorant. Most Americans would argue that the metric system is un-America, when the system they use
isn't American, but English! Yes, the English brought it over with them to America. The metric system is hardly American. I seem to recall separating
from Britain about 200 years ago.
4 - We shouldn't switch because the other countries did! or Why should we use the metric system? This isn't Europe!
Here's a list of 10 things both Europe and the US use
7) Decimal currency (yes, the Dollar and the Euro use base 10 counting, the same one you use to count every day)
8) The internet
10) A system of government
I could add a lot more to this list. Saying we shouldn't do something because Europe does doesn't really work.
5 - In conclusion
Basically, we need the metric system in America. It is simple, it is logical, and it makes sense. It is the language of science and the language of
manufacturing. (In fact, Americans use more metric than they think: 2 liter bottles, 60 watt light bulbs (yes watts are metric, along with volts,
ohms, and amperes), kilobytes, megabytes, etc. are all similar to the metric system, pencil lead is metric, etc.)
We are the last country to not be officially metric. Our children would do better in math and science and America could once again be the scientific
and mathematically competitive country it used to be.
[edit on 12-12-2008 by Totakeke]