It doesn’t. I’ve grown up using both systems and currently spend about half my time outside the US. I’ve never met anyone so perturbed by our cultural acceptance of 2 systems of measurement, an arrangement common in many other countries.
This is a case of one individual who appears to suffer from a compulsion to thumb his nose at something no one else cares about.
4 Likes
On this forum the “you should switch to metric” is definitely beating a dead horse. Some might find the subject of metrology interesting but it’s mostly used to derail threads.
1 Like
Back in the early 70’s we were in Israel. I stopped at an open-air market and bought some grapes. I still chuckle when I remember the exchange. How much for a kilo of grapes, I asked. Two pounds, the vendor replied…This was before Israel changed their currency to the shekel
3 Likes
Reminds me of a funny story years ago. We were visiting family in India and my wife wanted to buy some pure silk fabric for some home project. I was dragged along and we visit this store and was amazed at the hundreds of shades of silk. While the wife was looking the salesman was explaining some of the fabrics were ‘single’ width and some ‘double’ widths – and therefore the slight price difference per meter. So I piped up and asked what are the widths – he says the ‘single’ is 44” and the double is 60”! So I say not quite double – but what is it in cms? He looked at me bewildered as though I had 2 heads – no one I guess had ever posed the question to him. He takes out his ‘meter’ rod that was actually a graduated rectangular section. Measures and says approx 1.1 meter for the single and 1.5 meter for the double! 
1 Like
Either case, hope you don’t go too fast with such low keel clearance - keel squat effect. Telegraph has only ahead and astern positions … you would have to call to get a special ‘dead slow aground’!
1 Like
Where the metric system works is item that work better in base 10
Where the metric system fails is where its been invented to fit the system.
Threads are a perfect example, not engineering based just fudged to fit
UNF and UNC were derived via sound engineering
From the perspective of US medicine and healthcare, the switch to metric was made long ago. Many of the consumers of that industry’s products don’t see it that way though, so if you’re a physician or other healthcare professional who deals with the public, you have to be comfortable with BOTH systems and adept at conversions. I have a lot of Swedish friends and connections and they’re ALWAYS bombarding me with “why do you put up with that system?” because it bother’s them if I mention ANY non-metric measure. But I can and usually do just make a conversion and avoid the argument. I can’t first hand testify to this but I have been told by many engineer friends that much of US industry operates now on the metric system. At least internally and in a way similar to how it is in the medical field. Just one example from my particular specialty (ophthalmology): Corrective optical prescriptions for eyeglasses, contact lenses, lens implants, etc., etc. are written in Diopters and have been for well over a century (probably since the last half of the 19th C). And eyeglasses prescriptions are universally understood (with a few minor variations in format) around the world. The Diopter is a unit of measure of the focal length of a lens or lens system and expresses it as 1/f (the inverse of the focal length) IN METERS. So it just depends on who you ask in the US about the metric system. No, it’s not up to any one or group of us, but in fact a very large number of us are just using it and have been for a long time. I sometimes think it’s our polygot facility in switching back and forth that bothers our European friends!!
5 Likes
I agree with this, there’s no ‘you’ in general that can change to metric.
I do change on a personal level. I don’t cook that often and I don’t know the units very well. Pints, quarts, cups etc.
I sometimes write on the recipes the units converted to milliliters to make it easier.
They are not yet that easy to find (in my area) but I bought a 26’/8m measuring tape at the local hardware store. I was getting tired of making fractional inch errors.
1 Like
This sentence encapsulates something that a LOT of people appear not to understand: “precision” and “accuracy” are NOT THE SAME THING. Every measurement and specification has (or should have) a side spec of how much error it has or could contain. With specs, it’s usually small, but with measurements (especially stuff like depth soundings!) the potential error can be quite large.
You can present some measurement (i.e., “6 fathoms”) but if the error potential (also called “measurement uncertainty”) is +/- .25 fathom, then converting that measurement to 10.972 Meters may LOOK precise, but it actually has no real meaning because the actual depth could be anywhere from 10.515m to 11.43m (and that was when they did the measurement - maybe 15 years ago!) - plus or minus the error in the current tide height.
In actual fact, depth measurements generally have much more than .25 unit uncertainty, so trying to be precise with depths is a fool’s game (and who says the tide predictions are all that accurate, anyway!?)
One can be as precise as you like - but understanding the error/uncertainty is essential - I suspect most of us mariners understand this intuitively based on long experience!
3 Likes
Several years ago, a Canadian airline crew was refueling one of their planes. They had recently gone “metric” and the fuel crew got their conversion factor backwards and didn’t pump enough fuel in the jet so it “ran out of gas” half-way through the flight. Fortunately, the pilot was an experienced glider pilot who managed to “glide” to an abandoned airfield for a safe landing. Just thought this was something interesting to stick in a “metric” topic. Then there is the ad for the “rare and difficult to find 9mm socket. Don’t lowball me, I know what I have”.
1 Like
Appears that there are still a lot to be said about this “dead horse”.
This thread was started by my reply being moved by an admin, but without Meme Lord’s post for context:
“What is stopping you” was just the last sentence in my reply. (See OP)
Misunderstand me correctly; I don’t care if the US keeps on loosing Mars landers and expensive satellites: How NASA Lost Its Mars Climate Orbiter From a Metric Error
You have the right to use any system of measurments you like. Nobody is going to stop you.
For me, I prefer the metric system (now SI) but I have lived with several different systems and seen some of the dangers misunderstanding can lead to.
I have also seen some funny, or stupid, things that result from people thinking in one system and trying to do things in another. Examples:
- Building offshore rigs in Singapore from drawings in US units, but using steel in metric thickness and not changing the light weight of the hull. (Took years to figure out why the rigs floated deeper than anticipated)
- Or the driller reporting progress in meters and inches. The Toolpusher and Companyman could then mentally convert by the simple assumption that each meter = 3 ft.
I could go on with more such samples, but that would not serve any purpose I’m afraid.
If I haven’t said it before I’ll repeat it now; if everybody used ONE system the changes of conversion mistakes are at least less. (Unless that system involves fractions)
PS> Have you noticed that when somebody try to define USCS, or Imperial units, they use metrics?:
https://opentextbc.ca/basickitchenandfoodservicemanagement/chapter/imperial-and-u-s-systems-of-measurement/
More to that story - the fuel gauges on the plane were inop. They were using the fuel totalizer to keep track, but that is only as good as the data you type into it. The amount of fuel they thought they put in is what they typed, not what they actually got. They thought they had plenty of fuel according to the totalizer until they ran out.
- not sure how they work on big ships, but on boats and airplanes the sensors are in the fuel line(s) feeding the engine(s), it has no idea how much you put in until you enter it by hand.
Thanks for the update. I was just going by what I saw in the movie. And that must have been about 25 years ago. I don’t have a problem with the metric system except that I had been doing SAE for too many years when metric came along. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks as the saying goes. When we measured fuel, we used a tape measure with a plumb bob on the end. You took three soundings and averaged it out if the ship was rolling which was pretty much normal with a round-bottom icebreaker.
A really handy set of conversions to remember in the kitchen is 1 teaspoon = 5 ml, 1 tablespoon = 15 ml and 30 ml = 1 fluid oz., which, if it’s water, weighs 30 gm, which also is the mass of 1 avoirdupois oz…
That and knowing that 8 fluid oz. (240 ml)= 1 cup, 2 cups = 1 pint, 2 pints = 1 qt. and 4 qts = 1 gallon (US) Gives you a small set of facts with which you can handle most all metric >< english recipe measurements in your head. I know that because my wife constantly asks me to do those conversions from recipes she brings home from visits with our Swedish friends!
PS: having recently shopped for a set of tires, I was reminded of how schizophrenic THAT branch of commerce is with regard to mensuration! 245 (mm) x 40 (% of width)–19 (in) tires to be fitted on wheels (European made) of 8.0 (in) width that have a hub offset of +38 (mm) and a centerbore of 65 (mm)!! Obviously you have to be comfortable with both to buy wheels & tires in either Europe or N.A.!!
5 Likes
What does your ecdis say when you are boating in an area where the charts are not WGS84 so in Fathoms?
Think DIVERSITY
Think ALL INCLUSION
Think ALL EMBRACING
Think TOLERANCE
and accept UNIQUENESS.
All above will help You look at feet and inches with love and more enthusiazm. 
You are a. TRUE GLOBALIST.
2 Likes
The described situation is unlikely to happen. WGS 84 has nothing to do with the units used to determine depth on a navigation chart or to display the ENC on the ECDIS system.
You know little about ECDIS and the broader concept of e-navigation, don’t you?
It is possible to measure fuel that way on most airplanes, it is called “sticking the tanks” because for small aircraft it is a literal wooden stick with measurements marked on it you put down the fuel fill. Planes like the 757 have a way to do it as well, if the crew had done that they would have seen they had less fuel than they thought they did.
I have never actually seen anyone climbing up on the wing to do so, it isn’t a routine thing.
1 Like
As to the question as to why the U.S. government doesn’t mandate a change to metric, I don’t know the answer.
Presumably if big business / industry wanted the change bad enough they’d lobby congress to make the change. Perhaps they are satisfied with the status quo.
In any case it’s a socio-technical issue, purely technical arguments for making a change are mostly going to seem irrelevant.