Why the US doesn’t use metric (even though it does) | Did You Know? 

Until they get to the "ounce" measurement which is actually lower than a real ounce. 28 gram "ounces." Yet everything else is sold in grams or kilos.

I don't know, man. After 20 kilos, my eyes got blurred! 😂

@@manicjupiterflute I got ripped off then ,darn.

@@tjcmiscou Thats because Mexico and Colombia deal in Metric.

Dont they sell by the ounce?

Doubt it.

If you can't understand 10 x 10 you probably would doubt it.

@@gro_skunk The metric system is extremely easy to learn so it's reasonable on how they learned it in less than 2 weeks

Yeah, it doesn't take rocket a scientist to count on fingers and toes, LOL!

I lived in Europe for two years and just got back to the USA... The metric system makes way more sense but if you're not brought up with Celsius and kilometers and kilos it's incredibly difficult to adjust

lubricentro hotrod So you migrated to Argentina, Sud America and learned to come to terms with using the Metric System, and realized how simple and logical it is... The Imperial System and a slight variation exists in the US Imperial which standardizes the even worse British Imperial system. Both British and US Imperial are a mess. Even so That Australia has been using the Metric System for near on 50 years many people though they use it are not fluent in understanding it. That is a fault in the corrupt education system. And the UN is to blame for that, as the UN is in control of the World Education / Indoctrination system. Certainly The Metric system is logical and superior to the Imperial System -- Unless one is not able to count to TEN.....

@@andrew_koala2974 In construction related fields the British and American systems are much easier to use than metric. You just haven't been trained to use the system or understand the numerous advantages it has over metric.

@OceanBlue I assume there are differences between the American and British imperial system. Having said that, I fully agree with you that these systems have many advantages over the metric system, most especially in construction related fields. And I can easily demonstrate that.

Yet you came back. I guess a good economy is more important than the metric system.

Base 10, easy! Imp base 12, harder!

it's simpler

@@alpacamale2909 and the dumbest

@@infinity.4977 ok buddy

its more like the old guy who has done something the same way for years and doesn't have a reason to change their way of thinking. it works fine for us.

The U.S. Customary system is not as complicated as its foreign detractors like to say it is. It works fine for everyday personal use. If it didn't, nobody would use it.

American "bit" is much bigger than unified non-american unit.

Isn’t DIN not used as a standard for dates?

ISO datetime: YYYY MM DD HH mm ss

@@hansplas510 Germany?

Yeah, the "year 2038 problem". In various 'nixes, datetimes are stored as 32-bit integers, signifyine #seconds since 0000 hours 1 Jan 1970. I'm wondering what workaround would work best.

In a precision shop they're going a ten thousandth of an inch at a time.

That joke is SO old ...

And in 1984 I worked for a summer in the US in a machinist/engineering outfit. Machinists used imperial on imperial machines(makes sense). The engineers converted from imperial to metric, do all the calculations then convert back to imperial. Makes no sense at all but they considered it both faster and less prone to error.

@@astranger448 Metric is great

you left out US dry quarts!

@ibesweetp2 You got that backwards. The fact that you are is the only reason you haven't been steamrolled into accepting sensible measurements and you can allow yourself the luxury of not fully adopting SI units. Also, the US$ makes up 60% of reserve currencies - it is not the only one. With the next closest one being the Euro with ~20% - And I'm guessing about to increase in the wake of Brexit.

@ibesweetp2 Thanks, but no, i'm already busy enjoying my free education and healthcare over here.

I'm not sure why other people insist on dictating what is best for the United States--they constantly bitch and moan when the United States tries to do it for them. Fucking hypocrite eurotrash that we've had to bail out of multiple wars of self-destruction

@ibesweetp2 That will change as the world switches to using either Yuan or cryptocurrencies. Who cares of you are a superpower or not. The Chinese will pass you eventually without having the mountain of debt that you have. They will have a hill.

I didn’t know the US and UK weren’t part of the world! Very informative! /s

The United States has never used the Imperial System. We use US Customary units.

@@GH-oi2jf : Exactly right. The Imperial System was introduced by Great Britain in 1824, by which time the U.S. had been as separate, independent nation for almost half a century, so the U.S. simply continued using the units they had always been using.

Akfr0zen - I knew it! 😂

@@aidanclarke6106 🤗🤗

I’m all for the metric system in the US. But I don’t get the purpose of the u in words we done use them in. The addition of a U in a word, makes it look French. Flavor 🇺🇸 vs flavour 🇫🇷.

What about excessive use of Z instead of S and hyphens? The funniest is how a whole generation of people say Zee and not Zed as a kids tv show with a giant bird changed how they said it to make a song about the alphabet rhyme better. #facepalm

@@sinoperture of it irritates you then yes😂

@@kostadinkondev829 Nobody lives at those higher altitudes. And even if we did you would still have to adjust the F degrees.

F is more precise than C. That's why

@@phishENchimps ehh no.

@@viktormehl4311 I think he meant meticulous. But whatever (at this point). lol

Why make it simple if you can have it complicated??

when did your crawl out of your cave ,your to technical !! And it isn't (they, it's their using) words, numbers it's all cave man stuff right??

@@tjcmiscou they're

Gary Hillis nice, but tbh, correcting a single word would not be sufficient in this case, might as well rewrite the post completely, since there's little that can be salvaged.

@@tjcmiscou You must be American, because obviously you don't know the English language.

@@l.k.1011 we're not required to speak the queen's language. We're not subjects to any aristocracy.

You just answered your own question.

It's not that we are scared it's just that it's a logistical nightmare

We’re not scared of it, we use both. If you were born here, you would too. So why waste time arguing about something that you can’t control?

There are significant practical impediments. First, the U.S. Customary system is what we're all used to. If there is no compelling reason to switch to an unfamiliar system (and there isn't), then why switch? Second, if everyone in the U.S. uses the Customary system, then that makes it impractical for anyone to use the metric (or any other) system. If everyone around me is using inches, feet, pounds and gallons, then *_I_* have to, too. (Note that for the most part it's really only individuals in their everyday lives that use the Customary system. Like when you go to the store and buy a pound of ground beef and then go to the gas station and buy a few gallons of gas. Most large businesses, especially those that engage in international trade, use the metric system. And the U.S. government uses metric, as does everything and everyone in the fields of science and engineering. It's really mostly just at the "retail" level that we use the Customary system.)

@@Milesco You forgot to mention that there are very compelling reasons. Efficacy and ergonomics are the main reasons. Dividing and multiplying by 10 is something a 5 year old can do, but dividing and multiplying by 12, 16, or 24 takes time. There is exactly zero way you could say that this is "easier". Even if you're used to it it still takes longer than it would with 10. Besides, just because you're used to it does not mean it's good. Just because people in South Sudan are used to fearing for their lives every day because of war does not mean that they should reject change because it would take some "getting used to". Come to think of it, there's been a lot of buzz recently about people in the US fearing for their lives for being who they are...

You could say, it was an "act of God"!

You really could say that! I don't recall who robbed the ship during the first attempt, iirc it may have been the British since it does coincide with a war between England and France. Reflecting back on all these events even though they wanted to convert way back in the 1790s, the US started to grow and trade with others that were using the Imperial system. The growing nation didn't have the time to wait for a new calibration weight, its not like they can overnight a package. Imagine the amount of time to send it out twice to the US and send back the news it's stolen or lost plus the time to make a new sample. Metric wasn't even widely used until the mid 1800s.

Sounds like BS to me mate.

@@DannyBeeVegas I didn't know the British had pirates!

@@SandcastleDreams The British did have privateers which were basically pirates working for the crown...

that should work

But 15cm is barely more than 5.9 inches!

@@iangreen180 exactly

3 inches is all you need

@@iangreen180 darn, you deflated me ,after Tox had me feeling happy. So i guess I'll have too tell her, Hun its back to 5.9!!

@Jay Barker Moving the decimal 3 places is much simpler than having to convert with a number like 5280

I did that problem in my head, no problem. Metric is like a bicycle, it's easier than walking, but it makes you lazy because you get less physical or mental exercise, respectively. So get off your duff, and walk, lazybones! 😜😜

@@acmefixer1 This answer is a bit like mocking the disabled; most people cannot do such arithmetic in their heads.

@Jay Barker Exactly my point. You needed to do 5 arithmetic operations to do something that in the metric system would require only one.

I'm fine with the metric system, and I agree that it is convenient. I use it in my work. But stop saying the US uses the imperial system. We don't. We use measures that you are too lazy to google.

And .33333333333333333...(to infinity) is easier than a third? Twelve inches in a foot. Twelve is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. You can have a third of a foot (4 inches) or two thirds (8 inches) but try doing thirds with decimals! Ten is only divisible by 1, 2, 5 and 10. Ten is great for fingers or toes, but not so great for counting and measuring. By the way, we don’t use the imperial system in America, and never have. We use the English or American Standard system.

@@ethanlamoureux5306 People who use the metric system do not use 0.33333333333333333. If you want to represent a third of something, you simply input "1/3". 0.33 is not necessarily a third. It depends on the context. For counting and measuring, the SI is, again, much simpler. If you try to machine a complex piece of metal using the SI, you will think twice before going back to Imperial. Inches, feet, yards, miles... There is no rational correlating between them. How many inches are there in 2.7 miles? How many centimeters are there in 2.7 kilometers? You don't need a calculator for the second question.

@Geek37 I don't think you realize what you wrote. You can easily divide anything by 10. Try dividing 3.664759 in half. Now try dividing it into tenths. (0.3664759) Much easier.

@@ethanlamoureux5306 12 yards in a Mile? Easy to divide.

@@leoarc1061 There are no fractions in the Metric System. Everything is decimal based. So 1/3 cannot be expressed in that system. Machinists love working in thousandths of an inch. Nothing wrong with that. Americans don't use imperial measurements. We have our own system. There are 171,072 inches in 2.7 miles, but who cares? Only Metric people are obsessed with measuring everything in the smallest possible units. How many millimeters is it to the moon? And I don't need a calculator to multiply 2.7*5280*12.

Key word "largely"

The Swedish Panda tbf the UK is “largely” metric too, we still use pints and miles for something’s and litres and kilometres for others, the UK would probably fall into the same category as Burma

@@danielfield2570 : *Exactly.* Everybody _loves_ to give the United States a hard time about not using the metric system and almost giggles with glee when reciting that lame old platitude about Liberia and Myanmar. But of course _it isn't true._ There are several countries that don't fully embrace the metric system. Like the UK, Canada, and many other former Commonwealth nations.

@@Milesco i think the difference with the UK is that most people here understand both and know the conversions. We also understand that the metric system is just objectively better and we don’t let blind patriotism get in the way of pragmatism. It’s the only system taught in schools As a University physics student Ik the metric system is better, but in some cases I think imperial does actually make more sense to use like when discussing height of people we still use feet and inches, because it’s far easier to remember and compare your height when it is 5,10 rather than 177.8cm. And the only other thing I would keep is pints for drinking alcohol, I’m sorry but a pint glass is just a natural size for a drink, when I was travelling the continent, 500ml is just not enough to satisfy me but a litre is just way too much, a pint(568ml) is just a good middle ground. The rest you can change. And give it a few more decades and I think the UK will be nearly there.

Captain Quirk Most commonwealth nations that are still dealing with imperial units are dealing with imperial fasteners - all pipe threads globally are imperial - BSP or NPT. And yes it is annoying to have to cut that 610 mm wide plywood from the US down to 600 mm.

I was literally going to say the same thing,

Except vox is cancerous

@@John-gm8ty Vox is well informed and respected. Just because it doesn't conform to your uneducated views doesn't give you the right to compare it to a disease that kills hundred of thousands of people.

@@KhanPiesseONE oh really? And their well informed how to build a pc guide went how well? Sorry. You're deluded

Don’t be sensationalist, Vox isn’t cancerous. It’s just not your style of content. No problems with that, but don’t be a dick.

Easy, just double the numbers...5/8 10/16 20/32 40/64 so yes it is smaller...lol

@@patwelch8187 while it's not all that complicated, having to double a fraction 3 times to check which of two numbers given in the very same unit seems a bit unnecessary

there's no such thing as '1feet' . . .

Oh yes I used to do this sort of thing in primary school. "How many 3 13/64" pieces can you cut from a length of 6' 7 1/2 " allowing for 3/32" wastage at each cut" And if the material costs 1 pound 13 s and 7 pence hapenny per yard what is the cost of each piece to the nearest farthing. I don't miss it at all.

I love how Americans defend their shitty system. I'd say that the length part is acceptable (still dumb compared to the metric though), but what makes me angry is the volume and area parts. How long is a side of a square with an area of 100^2 feet? In the metric system it would be easy, you just divide it by ten, because there is exactly 10m long side in a 100^2m.

12 pence was 1 shilling, 20 shilling was 1 pound

Shadow Fan well that makes sense, why didn’t the rest of us think of that?

LSD is illogical

Is American not use metric system? Japanese has many use metric system. But Japanese original unit shaku（尺）,go（合）、jo（畳）、ri（里）etc and Japan has original cander. Now it's Reiwa （令和）. 令和5年（2023） sometimes use this.formal paper writing using.

I'm guessing the right-side standard is associated with both the American and French revolutions. Imagine hating the British so much that you decide move all your horse traffic to the other side of the road. To be fair, probably easier than car traffic.

You may be interested in the time Sweden did this. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JoYNhX15w4k.html Edit: I'm not passing any opinion here, just something relevant.

To simplify: Left side of road driving - knights draw swords with the right (dominant) hand Right side of road driving - horse-drawn carts' drivers whip/drive horses with the right hand

Exactly under Kings rule. Knights passed on the Left. As stated before the predominant hand is the right.

Michael Bauer Sweden changed sides to be inline with it's neighbours. Myanmar on the other hand from what I read, Did actually change sides to distance it self from The UK.

doggo. small U S brains

I don’t know what America you live in, but I was taught metric and use metric in everything I do except driving, cooking, and working on domestic cars. And ask any real mathematician or scientist and they will give you many complaints about some of the non-base 10 metric standards like time and angles. Only some things are easier.

@Gage Maybe it wasnt nevada, all those shithole flyovers look the same to me :-)

WRONG Jon. You are SUCH an idiot to believe that old joke.

I'm not surprised that especially the military made the switch early

Yep, cos they used French maps!

@@DaChaGee but french maps would lead them away from the battle...

@@DevinHeida Haha. Yeah!

Used, but not universally.

I agree... and when ever I'm dealing with people overseas (I'm in Australia, if you aren't, you're overseas) I use DD mmm YYY... eg today is 15 oct 018.

its because if you have noticed, we tend to say the month before the day. example would be: October *insert day* .

We should all use YYYY-MM-DD. ISO 8601 master race

You'd just say October 17th.

Maybe because calendars only have twelve pages. I've never seen a calendar with 31 pages. Every calendar I've ever seen has the name of the month on top, even on electronics. I'd hate to see calendars made to satisfy a DD/MM/YY layout. lolol

lol sure , throw the car away .... makes as much sense as using imperial measurements

But i bet you lost your 10mm box 15 minutes after you bought the set.

@Fred Flynstone 1/16th of an inch

But, it isn't in regular use in NASA and many engineering companies (varies on type)

NASA is a government agency and as such required to use metric where practical per the video. It was a private contractor, Lockheed Martin, that operated in the Imperial system and failed to convert software it supplied NASA to SI units.

someone’s butthurt. literally not her claim in the video. she’s just saying not everyone in the US exclusively uses metric simply because conversion isn’t compulsory like it has been in other countries.

when a majority of businesses and people still use the imperial system then no it would not be considered converted. and how tf is it even unfair it isnt like it is an insult that the imperial system is in wide use?

Agreed. My whole education was in metric

Yes Paul, to use the Imperial system one must have an IQ > 20. Stick to metric.

@Alex Dalex I didn't say it was. Fail for straw man.

@@rain22738 As a low IQ person you are better off in a primitive country. I understand

This is because you and me grew with metric. The duodecimal system is better. But the whole world already standardized to metric.

@@patrickeh696 'Low IQ' is Americans' middle name lmao gtfo

Depending of what you are talking about. The Duodecimal system base 12 is easier. For you and me is easier, as we grew with it, but we have to do calculation with 0.3333 and 0.6667. You don't have that problem in duodecimal. And arithmetic's are easier. For the rest (eg. equations) all systems are OK.

Liberia was at one point a us colony

Do you know only USA and Canada use a size of paper for printers and photocopiers? The rest of the entire world standardize on A4 size for printed pages. A3 is twice the width of A4 and A5 is half the height of A4. I think it's American big business trying to be smart (but failing badly).

Your logic is flawed.

@@Account-jn7xu Give it a week or two....

I love Angelique If I could like a comment more than once... :)

Probably not that uncommon, many Australians would use a mix of (centi)metres and feet/inches depending on context. It's kind of interesting. Feet and inches, for colloquial use, have been uniquely resilient in a way other imperial measures haven't. Personally I'm a millennial and was born in Australia but if someome asked my height in conversation I'd still give 'five-eleven' most of the time, and most people I know would do the same. Yards are completely gone though, and maybe everyone knows what a mile is but it's never used that way.

@@The98597thMark Well it does also help that my feet are a foot long...that is 12 inches. Great for measuring things 😀

@@johno9507 Mine too... those size 11 boots are great!

I’m the same! Years of working in industry where there’s both measures. I reckon it’s good knowing both.

As an Aussie who is old enough to have lived through the conversion process I'm inclined to use both at times. Usually I use metric but sometimes it's just easier to say an inch than 2.54 centimetres for instance. In those situations I tend to use the system that gives a round number.

Don't you mean 3.75 Litres vs 4.5 Litres? Anyway, first, these figures are approximate - more precise values are 3.78 and 4.54. And they both originated in Britain, but the smaller value was used much earlier. The latter gallon figure was due to a British overhaul of weights and measures in 1824. So since the USA colonies were settled long before this date, they used the old gallon. Britain and its Empire adopted the new gallon. Hence an accident of history due to isolation then independence. Both measurements are equivalent to eight pints - an old pint and a new pint measure.

@@thelongdrag9188 Actually, no. When Britain first colonized the New World, they shipped a lot of stuff from Europe to America. One thing they *didn't* ship was water. They did, however, ship booze. By an amazing coincidence, the American gallon is exactly the same size as the British *wine gallon* . Care to guess why?

@@linksysroutenoh.3460 Hmm... I'd forgotten I'd posted earlier to this thread. I'm not sure which part of my response your comment was directed to. If it's about omitting rigorous details about various archaic units of measure, wet or dry, that was due to my not wanting to over-complicate the explanation, but to deal with the original question more generally with respect to the two systems in use today. Now, to address your other points, since water was plentifully available in the New World, and rum distilling commenced quite early on the eastern seaboard, I'm not clear why there was even a need to ship either water or hard liquor by sea from Britain except for shipboard use. Growing hops and brewing was also an early industry that supplied the taverns, although the first colonists would no doubt have brought beer with them initially. If by booze you mean hard liquor, shipping in a wine gallon vessel (versus an ale or beer gallon) would have been completely orthodox. But to have a stab at your final question, I'd guess that the matter hinged upon shipping excise duty for royal revenue which, as far as I know, was paid by merchants per unit. Therefore by shipping more units than if the beer was gauged to the beer gallon, more duty accrued to the Exchequer.

The USA also doesn't use the Imperial System, but the US Customary System, which is a little different, like with capacity.

I was puzzled for a while after buying my new 2000 Chevy Camaro and then, wanting to bolt on some parts, learning that I had to buy a full set of metric wrenches and sockets-there are virtually no SAE nuts and bolts on the car.

Well, you need a set of Whitworth wrenches to work on your Norton. Oh, and to get the ignition harness connectors off a Rolls-Royce jet engine you need a Whitworth wrench... though most of the time you can skate by with a 17mm.. it's pretty close.

Like she said, everything in America is metric already, and what remains as being standard I’ve never heard of an issue with inconsistency. And all those errors where just due to overpaid scientists not paying attention. We are taught conversion tables all through school. So if ignorant means being able to accurately use two different systems of measure interchangably rather than only one, then one of our definitions of ignorant is wrong.

Thats why todays kids are so dim and useless.

Tbf I think even weight is changing. Especially if you're younger. I've never heard anyone under 30 using kg for their bodyweight.

Be careful, some Australians might have something to say. ;)

+*W388sx3 Yet a sizable chunk of the population are dipshits. Weird how that works. ;o)

Everyone here that I know accepts evolution. Most people except global warming just not that it is entirely man's fault

+Ryan Herich _"not entirely man's fault"_ -- Yeah... That's basically not accepting global warming. There are no other factors that explain the observed temperatures. And on evolution: When you breakdown the 2009 Pew Research numbers for the general US public: 31%(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) young earth creationists, 22% that think evolution is guided by a supreme being(aka not really evolution), 32% believe that evolution due to natural processes(actual evolution) and 15% NA That makes over 50% of the general population 100% wrong. When 31% can believe in something as stupid as that everything in existence is just a couple thousands years old, you know something is seriously wrong.

@@CoolioXXX52 No just 90%

That is good news there G Dubya, There is hope yet!

@@orlandopockets6372 no...I know it. My engineering degree made sure of that.

@@gregdubya1993 we're you on that engineering crew that sent the first rover to the moon ,that messed upon the conversion from imperial metric ? Did they have degree's or a online course??

@@tjcmiscou Oi, quit being a big pp my guy. I am also an American and I can say most Americans know the metric system. You cant graduate school without knowing it. If you dont know it you will fail every science course. All of that aside... Imperial is still my native and does come more naturally. Except things less than an inch. When something is smaller than an inch I go into metric for cm and mm.

@@tjcmiscou what funny is you believed they went to the moon 🤣🤣🤣

Is this from Craig Ferguson?? 😂😂

says Eric, the expert drug dealer

You too use it in science, trade, military and engineering so basically everywhere...

@@alex_inside I bet you're fun at parties

@@Anatol_SG My 7th grade science teacher

after the shooting... you are no longer innocent and off the map

Don't worry. NZ was on my chart when I sailed there from Seattle. I just loved listening to the daily news there, because I was very eager to hear how many hogget carcases had been sold to the Saudis that day.

NZ? Is that the small flyspeck hanging around Australia's nether regions?

Its alright the UN has you on top of the World.

r/mapswithnewzealand

The UK is a country that can't decide whether to align with the US (Imperial) or the EU (Metric). Just look at the dilemma that the country is currently facing with Brexit. No deal hard Brexit, soft Brexit, no Brexit, call for a second referendum, call for a new election to replace May as PM, or what?

I don't agree about the weight bit, we've largely moved to grams and kilos for weight, I've even gotten used to kilos on my digital (human weighing) scales. I admit though I do prefer MPH to KPH.

The UK had all but moved away from the imperial system, not just to align with Europe, but the rest of the world. The planet does not need two measuring system just like the world needs a recognised international language (English).

No. We do not use miles. My commute to work (southampton to gosport) is 19 km.Fuckifiknow what that is in imperial.. I see a few road signs in metres, but they're usually wrong ... example, the sign i see every day... 11, gosport/fareham. 13m. the sign is trying to say 0.3333miles. but it's saying 13 metres. Because idiocy.

for reference i HATE imperial holdouts . The distance references on uk motorways are in km.

They will have to coopb, all of the Scientific community worldwide is now Metric, so American Universities will have to update their curricullums if they have not done so already, this will flow on to the High schools, then elementary etc, etc otherwise it will be hard for American students to compete in a scientific field even in America, give it 20 years and most states will have changed over to the Metric system. Only 50 years behind most of the world.

@@gregedwards1087 it's already being used in the United States in the scientific field. I grew up in Virginia and ever since elementary school SI standard the only thing we used in science class. They have whole courses on it in the younger grades. most Americans aren't very good with metric but I know how to do relatively simple conversions from metric to customary in my head.

@@coopboulton, I know, it was only a few years ago that all Scientific endeavors in the States went over to it totally, what I find funny is your comment about most Americans not being very good with the simplest and most effective system of weights and measures yet devised, lol.

At my school in the US we learned both.

@@lildeerslayer8941 witch did you find better simpler?

Lolz.

@@jayrodriguez5785 yeah I can confirm that as an indian😂

No... considering in medicine... when having a fever... much more accurate for EVERY degree F, vs. the 2 1/2 degrees of F for 1 degree of C. ...i.e. easier to tell if body temp slowly rising or falling... so NOT “weird” ... just “better” ! 😊

you guys also drink and shit in the same river

Korean logic : - use (hana, dul, set) for hour, age, counting. And (il, i, sam) for minutes, day, year, phone number, costs,etc...

We swithed when i was in the middle of high school trying to wrap my head around a chain. I was so relieved

troyboy83 and no one else cares

I imagine there is a substantial fraction of that 5 million who don't actually care

@@antireconciler Nt until the 50 Muslims ended up pushing up daisies. Then the rest of the world took notice.

Exactly thank you

@@hypotheticlz They still are

Britain is officially metric, in line with the rest of Europe. However, imperial measures are still in use, especially for road distances, which are measured in miles. Imperial pints and gallons are 20 per cent larger than US measures. UK weights and measures

Ahh so that's why i keep seeing those flat earther making stupid memes with random numbers in miles.

Friends r like family and we went to the moon and you didn’t. So.

sasquatch 747 Went to the moon while you lost badly to a country where there people starve because of a flawed political system.

@@KanyeTheGayFish69 we even went to mars less than 10 times the cost of US so stfu

@@KanyeTheGayFish69 no, your scientist and NASA uses metrics so STFU

No need to apologise. Your English is much better than my Russian. I agree it’s more logical, but it’s whatever you have grown up with is what you find easier. I’m 42 and we were only taught a tiny amount of metric at school.

Love this comparison! 😀

Matti Piirainen the UK is a strange place believe me lol

Wow!

@@andrew_koala2974 Lol. The Uk and Canada use both. Idiot

I use the following units at my home: hu for the are, du for the volume, tsi for the temperature and I expect the whole world to know them. It is very easy to communicate about my units, why others do not want to apply my units? Maybe because they already agreed on one common system for 150 nations? I do not know because I'm American, and I do not like to learn, I want to be dummy and happy.

That car wasn't properly imported. European car makers make cars for US export and they use your system, not metric. Just like when I buy Ford in Europe, I get it in metric, not "imperial". So my point is, complain to the customer, not the US or EU or...you get my point :) edit: I just read about Tooling industry in US back in the day and how messy that was and how you ended up using both systems. I can't imagine how messy that situation is I did not wish to delete my ignorant remark that I made earlier, it's not "wrong" but it's off topic :)

That's it. We should switch to the Canadian system.

my dear friend, try this little exercise: how big is a cube that contains one metric ton of water. Metric system: 1 ton is 1000 kg. That is also (water, by definition) 1000l! I liter fits into a cube of 1dm3 (thats a cube 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm). so you need 1000 of these cubes to add up to i metric ton. 1000 cubes each 1dm3 are put together into one large cube measuring 10x10x10 dm3 the resulting cube that contains 1 metric ton of water is a cube measuring 1 m (also 10 dm, or 100 cm, each dimension) Now Mr. Richards you tell me, without using a calculater how many feet and inches is a cube that contains 1000 gal of water! Now lets look at American achievements in science. Who built the first Atomic Bomb.....Einstein.., Oppenheimer, Fermi you get my drift! The first operating military jet plane..American? I dont think so! The first rocket...American? I dont think so! Could it be the fact perhaps that it is easier to design things and do the math if measurements intuitively interlock and you dont need a calculator to figure out basic stuff?

I found it easier to work with metric units mentally when I realised I don't know what a pound feels like any more than a kilogram, and I don't know how far a mile is if I were to walk it any more than a kilometer, and I could only tell you what maybe 5 to10 different temperatures feel like because otherwise they're kind of the same. A whole childhood of US/Imperial units doesn't make me anything like proficient in estimating physical quanities in terms much more sophisticated than "too much" or "too little". So converting to metric units is about as easy as simply measuring and reading things in metric units.

@@konasteph You may have a point. Once upon a time a time, people used roman numerals. It was traditional. When they moved to Hindu-Arabic, economics, math, science, etc got a massive push due to the increased simplicity.

For measuring the distance I use american Unit, which is the "football field". When I go to the store I walk 5 football fields... That is how Americans use the measurements, they are just too dummies to calculate anything. That is why their Mars probe burned because of this nonsense they use. Ask average American how many yards is in a mile, no one knows. And so on. They have a knowledge of the first grader of elementary school considering the interchanges between different physical values and units. American education system is somewhere in XIX century.

@John Richards John, what you are saying is that you have a religious devotion to the Archaic System. Go on and hold yourself back, but don't fetter our children and grandchildren to the Archaic System when they can become citizens of the world by communicating in S.I. [International System of Units (Système international d'unités), the modern international standard version of the metric system]

That is fine. If people want to remain apart from whole world reminder, let them stay in their own tribe.

@@danielkowalski8555 Texas law has an official definition of the Spanish vara in terms of meters dating back over a hundred years. As the video states, the US was part of the Treaty of the Meter back in the 1870's, and many states adopted official conversion standards shortly thereafter. This was especially important in places that already used two standards of measurement, Like Texas and California.

@Provocateur "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -April Imperial system is far from perfect and I agree that metric is better. But the people and the masses of the U.S. are fine with it.

@flip inheck Yes, the metric system is used in science organizations such as NASA. It's the everyday people that use the imperial system in their daily lives. You do know that the customary system is the same as the imperial system, right? Most normal people in the U.S. use imperial units such as inches. Look at tape measures for example. Most people in the U.S. use inches to measure their waists rather than centimeters.

@@captainrogers4894 That's because it gives them a smaller number

@flip inheck The U.S. uses a bit of metric system, yes. But can you please be more specific by what "its own system" is? What is it called? Does it have a name? Because I live in the U.S. and know it as the customary system.

@flip inheck I would be very happy if you gave me a link to this information, btw.

John Palermo well you could learn metric in like 2 hours. If you know 10x10 you’re almost done.

US gallon et imperial gallon are not even the same, wow!

@@alainlachambre5646 That's a result of historical events. The U.S. gallon is based on the Queen Anne (or "wine") gallon, dating back to 1706. In 1824, Great Britain established a new system for use throughout its empire, called, not surprisingly, the Imperial system. The new imperial gallon was based on the ale gallon, which was about 20% larger than the Queen Anne (wine) gallon. But since the United States was no longer part of the British Empire (and hadn't been for half a century), we didn't adopt Britain's new gallon -- we just kept on using the same old one that we had been using for over a hundred years.

Interesting remark, but all of that has indeed faded away. When you tell the kids about *Dezimeter, Zentner and Pfund these days, they'll look at you like you were from another planet.

@@misatzu - Yep. Not only that but I learned to write in old German Script (Altdeutsche Schrift). When I take notes for myself in classes I use it still. The correspondence I kept from my mother and family (all from East Prussia) are writ in it. I have no family left who can read it. Now my grandson here in Boulder, CO isn't even being taught cursive. I've tried to teach him but he has no interest.

They call it USC United States Customary. Yes, the US gallon is not the same as the imperial gallon. It is about time the USA switched to metric.

Exactly right, billsv5. Thanks for saying that! Most people don't know that.

That’s because to the average yank the rest of the people in the world are a pack of fools, or they fail to realise that there is a world outside of the US.

@@stevenstart8728 no, that's not why at all. youre only seeing a small part of the much much greater picture. see, it has nothing at all to do with anyone's natinality. youre looking at the trees and missing the forest entire, to borrow a metaphore.

I doubt mile and military have the same root. mile came from mille "thousand", meaning 1 mile is 1 thousand paces (a pace being 2 steps, a human step is about 80cm, so 1 mile is about 1.6km). million is square of thousand, thus 2 L's. not 1 L like military. military in latin is militum of unknown origin.

Far as I'm aware, 'militas' (and hence 'military') is derived from 'miles' (usually written nowadays with a couple of horizontal bars over the vowels) meaning 'soldier'. It could just be a coincidence that military roads were built for and used by 'miles' who built 'mile forts' along Hadrians Wall every mile (distance) - but it probably isn't.

OrkStuff A thousand foot soldiers is a milite.. or a military unit that was used in late Greek times.. the Romans were far more strategic and militant in nature.. they used the centurion systems.. a hundred men as a unit.. ten by ten.. easier control over the ranks and much more easy to move and execute plans with lesser men in a unit..

One thing that might be worth bearing in mind is that when the Romans invaded Britain it was inhabited by Britons who translated the Roman words into British, after the Romans withdrew from Britain the Anglo-Saxons began arriving, eventually they took over most of what is now England and translated the British words into Anglo-Saxon. After the Norman Conquest the modern English language began to develop and the Anglo-Saxon words evolved into modern English. Probably worth considering by anyone who tries to take the short-cut of translating directly from Roman to modern English.

Minor correction - it's called the Imperial System due to the 1824 Imperial Weights and Measure Act, which was a reform of the previous Queen Anne Standards (which the US uses, hence the slightly different sized fluid ounces and the of course the UK pint being 20 Fl.Oz not 16 Fl.Oz). The word mile has it's root in latin - Old English mīl, based on Latin mil(l)ia, plural of mille ‘thousand’ (the original Roman unit of distance was mille passus ‘a thousand paces’). As for why we go on the left, it's because this gives you the chance to fight using your right arm.

Once again, America just making things difficult.

@@Aeternum_Gaming This is the attitude that will bring downfall. American thinks whatever they think and do is the only way and they are superior in everything. Trust me after twenty years, no one will give a damn to USA, the way tings are going. America is only strong because of immigration.

AC Just ikr. There is a lot of immigrants in the US,US is still going strong because of them

Here's a newsflash for you, "AC Just" -- the U.S. already uses the metric system (SI) for all scientific and engineering purposes. The U.S. Customary system (NOT the "Imperial system"*) is only used by ordinary individuals for day-to-day non-technical stuff. ______________________________ * The United States has never used the Imperial system. The Imperial system was established by England in 1824 -- almost half a century after the United States won its independence. People in the U.S. use the system that was in existence before the 1824 establishment of the British Imperial system.

It is very hard to switch between systems. We learn the metric system in college yet at the grocery store it is imperial. You have no choice but to pick one.

North Americans, particularly those in the USA have an inability to think rationally. They are bad at English, most are illiterate. They are bad at math Bad at Geography. This is all by design. It was planned to dumb down the nation in 1970. This is know fact within the Education System.

A pound of feathers is heavier than a pound of gold, however, an ounce of gold is heavier than an ounce of feathers. Makes perfect sense.

best comment yet! xDD

Btw since NASA was founded it is mertic. Remember Werner von Braun was german. So the Saturn V was metric

Like Myanmar and Liberia.

That's why they will _never_ really switch. All that's going on are slight transitions, where it doesn't cost much (like on drinking bottles). And there's nothing stupid about saying that, because that's just how it is. The only stupid thing is to defend the imperial system for alleged advantages, that actually do not exist when eliminating any argument that is simply based on already existing conditions and references. But the immense cost of a complete switch is a fact, no one is willing to pay these astronomic amounts. All we can hope for are future generations getting more and more used to metric, until imperial becomes a relic and eventually fades away. But that process can last for centuries =)

@@misatzu if it will change, then it's good, I'm not saying that it needs to be done instantly, it needs to be changed started with the one's who are costing more and more, or by states, if nothing will happen then they won't change their outdated system

Why bother changing systems just gives government the scope for upping taxes. Litre is too small for buying fuel a gallon is more usefull, I use both.

@@chrisedwards7203 it's not small if you're not used to it, and as I said, it needs to be changed, not at the same time, if it will be splitted, it can be done not that expensive, leaving as is will make future transition only more expensive

@@chrisedwards7203 How is buying 0.75 or 2.5 or 4.25 gallons of gas more *useful than buying 3 or 5 or 16 liters of gas?

I so agree!!

yea. math is hard for you. ain't it.

@@64arguz so. You don't live in the US.

Phish N' Chimps I love USA , I live in USA and PROUD American citizen, however, you have to admit that “standard” measurement sucks, even calculators don’t have 3/4 , 5/8 or 7/8 ! Is almost impossible to measure SMALL fractions with such system , 3/4 =2.75 right ? Ok 2.76= ? Tell me without using a calculator !!!

@@64arguz you can always use a pencil and paper. In USA, country that I love too, They teach us how to use both Metric and US Customary... you should know that. right?We were learning Fractions and Metric in Elementary school..

@@phishENchimps It's just about to think faster and smarter Why would you make your life harder when you can get the same result faster? Weird logics

Your phone heard you and recommended it.

It's quite silly in the day AND age, that YOU don't know the difference between "in" and "and", or between "their" and "there".

@@fearlesscrusader AMEN

The United States Armed Forces use a mixed bag of both systems. I will try to break this down in an organized fashion. LENGTH: Distance while navigating: Ships: Nautical miles Ground Vehicles: Using a military map and coordinate system, kilometers. Using civilian maps and roadways, statute miles. Small Unmanned Aircraft: Kilometers Aircraft: I have no experience, but I would imagine nautical miles. Range to target: Army small arms, meters. Marine Corps small arms, yards. Artillery: kilometers and meter. Altitude: Feet Depth: No submarine experience, but the movies always say feet. Perhaps they are just pandering to the civilian viewer. Proper spacing of personnel formations: PACES. Height (of a person): Feet and inches Weapon bore: Mixed. millimeter, caliber (decimal inch), and gauge (defined by the number of lead balls of a specified diameter that weigh one pound). Inches for the BIG guns. Most metric ammunition is due solely to standardization with NATO, because ammunition is the MOST important thing to be able to share on the battlefield. Needle diameter (medical): Gauge (same as American Wire Gauge due to manufacturing similarities). WEIGHT: Mixed bag. Person, pounds. Equipment, pounds. Cargo: pounds, tons, long tons, kilograms, tonnes. VOLUME: Fuel, oil, water, etc... Gallons, quarts, ounces. Medical supplies: milliliters. VELOCITY: Ships: Knots Aircraft: Knots Ground Vehicles: on a Blue Force Tracker system, kilometers per hour. "Hey driver, how fast are we going?" Statute miles per hour. TEMPERATURE: Fahrenheit Almost all other measurement types are used only for scientific purposes, so they are largely metric for ease of calculation. Practical applications are almost all imperial because it's on that which Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen are raised, thus they can most easily visualize those units.

Damn straight

Yeah, but we got Obammy out so we're headed in the right direction.

And, as implied, we don't respond well when compelled by government...."individual mandate" ring a bell?

"Hardly anybody is confused"-oh really? Give me the definition of an acre of land (without looking it up). I'll give you a hint: it's measured in chains by furloughs.

@@PaulZink It's 43,560 square feet. There are 640 acres in a square mile. That's not that hard....

@@jeffy069a I asked the definition of an acre, without looking it up-not equivalents like how many square feet are in an acre (e.g., the definition of a square foot is not 144 square inches, but rather, a square measuring one foot by one foot). So: I didn't think so, but to be fair, few Americans would know because it's an archaic unit of land measure: the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet).

@@PaulZink well dang, you got me there! My parents owned a "half-section" when I was a teenager. I learned that a "section" is equal to a square mile, and since they owned 320 acres (minus the area of a road going through it) a square mile = 640 acres so I could extrapolate the area of an acre from it. Otherwise as a city kid I would have no clue. I'm not American either, so I should have just not commented lol. Peace!

How many toes to the foot, then? Is big foot bigger or the same? In the metric system there are 5 toes per foot and ten toes for feet (A pair).

@@MikeGreenwood51 Americans have 12 fingers and 12 toes to divide yards, foot, miles, gallons etc. Americans are very smart.

@@danielkowalski8555 Albeit a trifle radioactive, apparently.

Exactly, if you buy any bulk goods such as food or construction materials it is all imperial

You kind of point out the ridiculousness of using the imperial system yourself with that pint example. A mile is not a mile, a gallon is not a gallon - which as proven by that Air Canada flight can have very serious consequences. How much is a foot? If I go to a shoe store I can usually choose from at least thirty different sizes for a foot. The name is already confusing, it's all very regional, very personal and thus very bad for international trade.

@@WhoStoleMyAlias just for perspective I'm not saying the imperial system is better. Any fool can see metric works better on paper as it's all tens hundreds and thousands . I'm just saying that for myself I can't guess and estimate things by eye in metric and that Imperial is very ingrained in the UK way of life much like in the US.

@@edisloud I don't think anyone can estimate distances in metric. That's not the point. What is the point is that I would never tell a blind guy to take a left after 200 steps, because that will practically guarantee him to land in the water rather than send him over the bridge. Referencing sizes, volumes, weights, etc like this doesn't work because they have too many interpretations. Which as you stated are in fact individually standardized in different regions of the world, with of course US and UK versions most named for the absurd differences between them. Communication-wise you are complicating things that shouldn't be complicated - that in fact you should not want to be complex because of the risks involved.

@@WhoStoleMyAlias On an international scale such as trade I would agree with you. Your reference towards trade was very accurate and correct. Or with Science, multinational agreements etc. On paper or when extreme accuracy is needed it is best to use metric, so on the whole I mostly agree with you.... The foot though is a standardised measurement, no worry about it being different in different countries like the ton or the pint. It's safe to use and can not be confused with something else any more than a cm or a meter.....Your example of the blind guy is very missleading. My mother is recently blind and also my grandfather for much longer; and if I told them to turn left after a KM or 200 meters they would be lost. The roads in the UK are run in miles, yards and feet..... All the signs are made as such and that is the system people use for estimates. In the UK your buddy doesn't live X KM's away, he lives X miles away. So for daily guesses and estimates it's perfectly safe to use imperial with other people here in the UK Infact I would suggest it is much safer to give someone in the UK a distance in miles rather than a KM if we are talking about general directions and not scientific things..... In a way I'm glad to see Metric being used more and more in the UK, Metric on the whole is a much better system. The young in particular seem comfortable with it but still they persist in estimating their trip to school in miles. It would be silly to give someone instructions in KM when the road signs are in miles. Most blind people, and I know many, use miles just the same as the rest of us. I'm not attacking the Metric system as it's a perfectly sane and useful tool. Long term my guess is that the road signs may be shown in both metric and imperial for a decade or two, to give people time working in both. But until then please don't go giving too many people in the UK directions in KM, or there will be a lot of lost people if they don't have access to a conversion. If my mother gets a guide dog perhaps it will be a metric dog ;) lol.

@@edisloud Sorry about your mom. So what you're saying is that distances are the same in every version of the imperial system (except nautical)? It's just volumes and weights then? Still tricky. Consider a plane captain saying he needs 200 gallons of fuel, then you need to listen to his accent to figure out how much he's really asking for, while at the same time hoping he did not already make that conversion to meet your frame of reference. Talking about communicating, I guess I should have used the word paces rather than steps. Obviously a pace is not defined in either imperial nor metrical and at least in my case it will depend on whether I'm walking, parading or running how much distance that actually translates into, be it yards or meters. What I meant to say that it is better to communicate these kind of things in a uniformly defined standard and people can then work out for themselves whether for them that translates into 125, 140 or 165 paces.

To say thumb in French we say "pouce" not "inch". ;)

@@tonyhawk94 Translation of English ''Inch'' to French, = ''Pouce.'' Therefore inch equals thumb in French.

And when Mexicans get driver's licenses or maybe people will realize 1000s of a meter is less accurate then 1000s of a inch

TheoneGodfathet I must admit you are very dumb

Les Grossman and 1000s of a cm, or 1000s of a mm?🤔

@@j.r.arnolli7494 thousandths voice text has issues

niklar55 ....Also The Ejector Seat _ English Invention Towing of Ships - Perfected by the Royal Navy As for Jet Engine _ That depends on which Encyclopedia one reads. One can safely say it is a parallel invention of England and Germany. Hovercraft- English invention The modern Toothbrush - Hydraulic press - Steam Engine - Tension-spoked wheel Modern fire extinguisher - Electric Motor - Glider .. ....... Reflecting telescope: Isaac Newton, in 1668 but only because * Mathematical evolution of spherical mirrors * Rectilinear motion of light and use of lenses * Refraction angle variations * Magnifying effects of the plano convex lens * Introduced the concept of elliptical shape of cosmological bodies * Study of the Center of Gravity as applied to balance were discoveries in the Islamic world as were many other. The list is endless. It was also Sir Isaac Newton who made public the forged insertion the discovered in the Bible. Thousands of other errors, mistranslated and wholesale change were discovered by others over time.

And the U.S. bailed Britain out in WWII. You almost had to learn German there, buddy.

@@eriksmith2514 Only because the USA sat on its collective arses for three years, while Britain bankrupted itself supplying the Russians, and others. It was the Russians who eventually won the war for everyone, by destroying both the Japanese and the German armies.

@@niklar55 "It was the Russians who eventually won the war for everyone, by destroying both the Japanese and the German armies." Yes. I especially liked those two atom bombs the Russians dropped.

@@eriksmith2514 Japan had already capitulated. The bombs were unnecessary, and in any case it was British expertise that made the bombs possible. Britain GAVE the US their nuclear knowledge, and a lot more, in exchange for lend-lease, for which it was still paying the US up until 2006! In addition, the USA was funding the Nazi's before, and during whole of WW2. When it ended, it imported thousands of top Nazi's, gave them new identities, and jobs. Thats why the USA has used all the same methods, to foment war after war since then, and for the same reasons. You think your elected government controls the USA? It hasn't since December 23, 1913, when it gave control of its money away. ''If you give me control of a country's money, I care not who is elected, because _I_ will control that country!'' So, all the wars since then, including WW1, have been engineered to line the bankers pockets, and the ''Patriotics'' in the USA think its for their 'cuntry!'

But that 11% was imperial percent. Which is 35 metric percent. Also, 4/10th of an imperial billion is just around 360 metric million.

@@nyosgomboc2392 so great! Haha

What's the pros of Fahrenheit, excuse me? Celsius is so easy and understandable. When it's 0, it snows. When it's 100, you can have tea.

You know that always pisses me off when I reach for a wrench for my 97 GMC pickup, only to find out some bolts are metric.

How the hell can you tell where in Oz? It is not like Australia has clear regional accents like the UK or USA.

Believe me you can tell. South Oz has a different accent to the rest of us. As do Queenslanders, especially up North. Clearly you're not an Aussie.

I am a dual citizen of Australia and Taiwan. Born in and spent most of my childhood in Australia. On my dad's side we have family history in Oz dating to the 1800s. Am more NSW/WA though. Qld to me on average stronger accents than most of Oz but still essentially the same accent. SA I admit I have not been to recently but still whatever the variation by world standards it is VERY small if I have to struggle to hear it (I can easily pick some different USA or UK accents and I have never lived in either). I would occasionally be able to pick some differences between WA and NSW or Vic by choice of words, but not by accent. I don't even know what my own accent is NSW or WA... (having lived in both).

Didn't think about where she was from but yeah, a Queenslander by the sound. Southern Queensland. She has a bit of the nasal sound but not as intense as further north. I often go to the State Library in Brisbane and the recorded woman's voice in the lifts is a very strong Qld accent ... I always chuckle at the sound.

@@naguoning tbh I can't blame you, I'd probably have to make educated guesses if someone asked me to identify aussie accents

It pisses them off when they cannot follow American cooking recipes on RU-vid.

Being in the machinist trade, I can use both systems, too. Some jobs I get are in metric, but the great majority are imperial. Just the idea that the imperial system is somehow metric as this vid says is nonsense. Also, when it comes to machining, I would rather work in imperial. A machinist breaks inches down into thousandths, or ten thousandths, or what ever is needed, but it's a simple base 10 system, so it's easy to use. For me it's easier to visualize .001" than it is to visualize .00254mm. The metric number is still on a base 10 system too, but I use imperial more often, so am quick at it.

Same with nasa

And the scientific community.

*military

She only said that a couple times in the movie

what alphabet system did you use to spell the military?