why the UK went METRIC and left America BEHIND!

[@stevebrown7574]

I worked for an American company in the UK, the boss was asked, "When are you Americans going metric?" He answered, "We're getting there slowly, inch by inch".

[@BritishBeachcomber]

America is already metric, by law. Just a shame they didn't tell the people.

[@GoodWhinger]

US units are all defined in metric - so they're using it now. Also everyone knows, first it's the metric system, next they'll take away the guns

[@gottfriedheumesser1994]

@@BritishBeachcomber And this law is from 1824 if I remember correctly. Since 1959 the inch is defined as 25.4 mm!

[@frankleespeaking9519]

That is a quote from Winston Churchill. That makes him a little less funny

[@edwardcanavan]

I started as an apprentice machinist in 1972. It was mandated we would be transitioning to metric as I learned my trade. This would have been a difficult transition added to an already stressing learning process but well worth it in the long run. It did not take. That is the greatest American embarrassment in my life time.

[@richardsinger01]

Yes I remember the UK going metric and currency decimalisation. We had to learn both systems in primary school. The backbof our exercise books had definitions of archaic units like rods, poles, perches, chains, furlongs etc. I can remember a chain is 22 yd and a mile 1760 yd, but that's all. Bonkers! As a 9 year old, decimalisation & metrification was a huge simplification for school arithmetic.

[@AceEagle-pm1bn]

I'm 6'1, weigh 80KG, travel 10 miles to work and it's 18°C today so I'm going for a pint after work before picking up a litre of whisky on my way home for my Dad's birthday... got to love the UK 😂

[@Poliss95]

@AceEagle-pm1bn Whisky must be sold in Either 25ml and multiples of 25ml, or 35ml and multiples of 35ml (not both on the same premises).

[@AceEagle-pm1bn]

@@Poliss95 Not in a shop... I am British just poking fun at how we mix the two. I measure height and distance in imperial, weight in metric and volume a mixture of both. Also I am pretty sure 35ml whisky is only legal in Northern Ireland and the Republic

[@xavierh658]

Next time you go for a pint have a look at the glass. Pretty sure it is 50cl, not a pint

[@alexandregarden6260]

Live in France. No equivalent expression for “I’m just under six foot”. Can visualise an acre but certainly not a hectare!

[@ptjogara]

@@xavierh658 I think they are still pint glasses by volume (56cl roughly?) but just have a mark at the 50cl line. I worked in Irish and English bars in Denmark where we sold pints in pint pots, but they had to have an indicator of the half litre line on the glass.

[@sonnylatchstring]

As long as there are many Americans who think that Amsterdam is the capital of Copenhagen, Europe is a country, a quarter of an hour is 25 minutes, driving 60 miles per hour for half an hour does not get you 30 miles further, the metric system is a kilometer too far for them.

[@Matthew_Loutner]

@@sonnylatchstring Well . . Never heard of any or met any. 🤷

[@marvindoolin1340]

Wondering what you mean by 30 miles *farther. It would certainly be 30 miles from where you started.

[@mindexplorer6929]

... and confuse Switzerland with Sweden ...

[@Matthew_Loutner]

@@mindexplorer6929 ... or confuse Aruba with Belize ...

[@emersonof]

😂😂😂

[@Phiyedough]

I have a 1948 BSA 500cc motorcycle. It was always listed as 500cc UK never used cubic inches for engine size.

[@davidjones332]

Not strictly true. In the immediate aftermath of WW2 British diesel engine manufacturers (except Gardner) agreed to use cubic inches to measure displacement, hence the Leyland .600, AEC AV 590 etc. The practice died out again, possibly because the Americans showed no interest in buying our engines.

[@coover65]

Australian cars used to use imperial for engine size, such as 202 c.i. or a 351. In the mid to late 1970s we changed those designations to metric. A 202 became a 3.3 and a 351 became a 5.8.

[@ldnwholesale8552]

Correct. Why?? I dont know but I have always looked at motorcycles in cc. Then watching the Yanks waffle c/i for Harleys and Indians,,, and then Jap and Euro bikes in CC.

[@peckelhaze6934]

I use both metric and imperial. It all depends what I need it for in UK.

[@tonys1636]

I still ask the butcher for a lb of sausages, bacon or liver. Still weigh myself in stones and lbs, but my speak the weight scales say it in lbs and decimal of them when set to English.

[@roblloyd1879]

Same here. I do remember working in industry in the 70 as a welder/fabricator, machinist when a number of items were constructed the wrong size because a decimal point wasn't showing on the plans. Amusing. From then on drawings were made without decimal points. Working from mm up you inserted them mentally so all is not perfect with the metric system. Buy a sheet of plywood and it is still 8ft by 4ft although it will be advertised in metric dimensions, as are many other UK building dimensions. Now retired from Industry I am happy to work in both Imperial and Metric although in my home workshop it tends to be a mix of both. Also many older items I play with will have Imperial screw threads. A lot of the earlier Chinese imports were also Imperial often using Whitworth threads. A legacy of Empire I think.

[@Drew-Dastardly]

@@tonys1636 Having lost some weight recently, it is only the stones (14 lb) that make me happy. Girls are obsessed with every little pound which is probably water weight. It is the stones that really count. No modern scales measure stones. I've dropped 3 stone in 2 years.

[@pete_lind]

Imperial measurement are determined by metric system since 1959, inch is 25,4 mm and not three barley grains. US Congress declared the metric system to be the preferred system for trade and commerce in 1988 with the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. US uses in bullets kind of metric system, 1/100 of inch and not correct imperial fractions that would be 1/128 of inch

[@fuzzbox3912]

I run and cycle in km but drive in miles. I understand weights in both kg and stones/pounds. The only metric only measure I use is Celsius, Fahrenheit always seemed insane with its logarithmic gaps between degrees.

[@l4d1k06]

I had a German rental high roof transporter which I drove to the UK. I ended up at a tiny arched tunnel under a railway. The sign at the tunnel said to drive in the middle and it's 9"10' high. I looked up at the warning sign inside the the vehicle and it said "Attention 2,80m height!". I thought "Thanks for nothing, UK metrification!" 😒🙄. I asked Google to convert it and was still not convinced, so I drove through it with the window open and my head outside lookung up. 🤔🤷‍♂

[@cr10001]

A metre is just under 40" (39.37 IIRC) so your transporter would be - a fraction under 112" high, say 111" or 9'3". So quite good clearance. But yeah, I'd be cautious too.

[@jeffgraham6387]

The US is against 'socialised' health care financed by taxation yet are happy with a 'socialised' army, airforce, navy and police, CIA, FBI etc...they don't want metric but are happy with a metric currency system...😂

[@ianmontgomery7534]

they have insurance which is socialism at its nest. Their currency is decimal.

[@gmm5550]

we all know that americans are "special" hahaha

[@bb1111116]

Yes. Many in the US are against socialized health care unless the person receives it such as with Medicare. Many in the US are against a socialized pension system unless the person receives it such as with Social Security. Many in the US are against a socialized insurance system unless the person receives it such as with Workman’s Compensation Insurance.

[@macflod]

I believe this is due to perception. The saying “in politics perception is everything “ Ie they perceive the word socialised as evil- they associate it with Nazi dictator, communist dictators and a removal of freedom. However they don’t actually understand what it is or would give them. As has been said- many services to the public are socialized in nature and there is not mass outrage! So i believe its due to perception and lack of understanding.

[@alastairbarkley6572]

@@bb1111116 Much of the pushback against socialised medicine comes from the highly politically influential cabal of American doctors, healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry. In socialised medicine countries, healthcare can be (and is) much more closely regulated in terms of health gains, safety and general quality of intervention - and drugs, operations, procedures, investigations of doubtful benefit are simply not provided. They CAN be obtained in the non-socialised private sector but the influence of 'socialised' - such as the UK's National Institute of Healthcare Excellence (previously NICE) organisations is such that these 'disapproved' things generally are hard to get and private health insurers won't touch them. The absence of effective regulation at government level means Americans get less effective, often more dangerous, usually much more expensive drugs and interventions because 'treatments are a private matter between doctor and patient' and the cabal can invent nonsense like 'socialised medicine death panels' to scare American consumers away from asserting their power. It's relevant that American pharma has consistently lobbied - very expensively - against NICE in order to open up the UK market on their terms. The previous Tory government were moving to facilitate this.

[@coldlakealta4043]

I live in Canada near a US border point. There are some amusing stories about US tourists up here, such as reading our metric speed limit signs as being in their units. No, my friends, 100 kmh does not mean you can go 100 mph. They have no idea at all how far the distance markers indicate and are constantly asking "how far is that?" My favourite is a video taken at a gas station where an American is freaking out because his car only burns gallons, not litres.

[@Matthew_Loutner]

When an American says, "How far is that?" The correct answers are: 15 minutes Half hour 45 minutes 1 hour 2 hours 4 hours 8 hours All day Why is that hard for you?

[@daveanderson802]

@@Matthew_Loutner But we're metric, 100 minutes in an hour. 10 hours i a day. NOW how hard is it? ("You guys don't have the 4th. of July up there, do ya?" - "No, we don't, we go straight from the 3rd. to the 5th. Every year"

[@Matthew_Loutner]

@daveanderson802 You cannot say it in American?

[@lws7394]

The fact that a Canadian needs to ask which gallons the american burns , says enough ! MPG in Canada is different from MPG in US , as the imperial measure Gallon in Canada is 4.5 litre and the Customary Unit gallon in US 3.1 litre. !

[@clivemitchell3229]

@@Matthew_Loutner What are these "minutes" and "hours"? The metric unit of time is seconds...

[@jerry2357]

I grew up in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, so I can cope with both systems. In the early 1980s, as an undergraduate student, I worked a summer on a petrochemical plant in the UK that had been built in the 1960s, and was entirely calibrated in ft, lbs, psi, °F etc. About 10 or 15 years ago, I was in a technical meeting in New Jersey, and there was a big disagreement about the temperature at which a particular reaction was carried out. After a few minutes, I realised that some people were talking in °F and others were talking in °C (all the people were from the USA), and they were talking about exactly the same temperature!

[@romad357]

But were any using °K?

[@jerry2357]

@@romad357 "°K" hasn't existed since 1967, since when it's the "Kelvin", symbol "K", without the degree sign.

[@davidswan4083]

I'm an old duffer who had the whole Imperial system foisted on me in primary school, but I'm also a science bloke so am effectively "bilingual" in measurements for the most part. The one I *Will Not Use* is degrees Frankenstein, something that should be consigned to the dustbin of history. And don't get me started on US recipes using "cups" argh!

[@qwadratix]

They actually sell 'cups' for measuring, seriously! It's positively medieval. May as well use bushels.

[@Tessa_Gr]

@@qwadratix It's such a pain when you find a nice recipe online and then you see everything is in cups. I've just not done a lot of them because it's just too stupid and upsetting to see such bullshit. The most annoying thing for me is when looking up Korean recipes, most of them are done either by Korean-Americans or Koreans catering to US-Americans who then use cups. Even though in Korea it is very standard to use grams (like any sane person would). So it takes a really long time to find any good recipes because US-Americans just made it worse for everyone around the world.

[@vikingraider1961]

I don't have a problem with "cups" - as long as everything in the recipe is *all* in cups - you just use any old cup!

[@hadz8671]

As a scientist born in the sixties, I use metric at work but when I go hiking I think in miles walked and feet ascended.

[@Phreak0matic]

​@@vikingraider1961 So a cup of eggs then

[@ApiaryManager]

The interesting thing is that US and UK units are not necessarily the same. Take, or example the gallon. The US gallon is 3.79 litres while the UK (imperial) gallon is 4.55 litres.. In other words, the US gallon is 20% less than the imperial gallon. Also, while the UK adopted the metric system in most things, we still buy petrol (gas for the benefit of US viewers) in gallons and measure distance in miles - some habits die hard!

[@danielkelly2210]

In the US in the 1970s there was a government plan to start selling gas in liters (litres, to you Brits) by 1981. There were even public service announcement TV spots telling you the change was coming. Reagan’s administration promptly torpedoed that in 1980 (along with the metrication bureau) when he came in. One thing that did happen in the 1970s is that soda pop/fizzy drink bottles got redesigned, and because they assumed the US was going metric, they designed them to 1, 2, and 3-liter specifications (though I haven’t seen a 1- or 3-liter bottle of soda pop in ages). This is why these bottles are two liters even though milk, beer, and orange juice are sold by the pint, half-gallon, and gallon.

[@ApiaryManager]

@@danielkelly2210 I would say that we're metric over here (milk, soft drinks etc are all in multiples of a litre) except for anomalies like petrol.

[@la-go-xy]

As a German exchange student in engineering, I was at an advantage when estimating a building height in metres... The tutor then asked me, how tall I am and I gave my 1.7 m - only realising later, that the UK and US students didn't know their height in m... However, what's really essential is having a decimal system. So, you do not need to remember if something is factor 12 or 14 or 0.56123 or whatever...

[@oliversissonphone6143]

Decimal, so, like Fahrenheit?

[@lookoutforchris]

Traditional units have decimals. Every fraction is equivalent to a decimal. This is one of the dumbest things I hear Europeans say. The decimal inch built the industrial world, including Europe.

[@micbarker6256]

I would be stunned that any UK engineering student would not know their height in cm (as well as ' & ").

[@oliversissonphone6143]

@@micbarker6256 some uni students are 18 year old and have never left the UK..

[@la-go-xy]

@@micbarker6256 That was the mid-1990s. It could be different now ..

[@holgerschurig4430]

"to make non-Americans happy", well maybe this is true for the odd tourist. But it will also make you happy. I'm in Germany, and if I want to buy an applicance, e.g. an oil pump, and I get an offer for such a device from a US company, I hardly look at it. I don't want that it has nuts and bolts in inches, the the mounting points are in inches etc etc. To me, the stubbornness of converting to a morde modern, more versatile, easier to calculate with system brings the US industry at a disadvantage. And as a result staying "imperial" helped in the de-industrialization over there. See, it's not always the chinese ...

[@occamraiser]

The UK adopted metric measurements for science and accuracy, but retained miles, pints and inches for cultural familiarity and to avoid the cost of replacing almost every single road-sign in the country. It's not hard. If a measurement matters it's usually done in SI, if it's casual and needs to be comfortable to everyone it tends to be miles or inches. America's love of Imperial measurements from 18th Century Britain is flattering, but nonsensical.

[@lookoutforchris]

America switched to the metric system ages before the UK. And American has never used the Imperial System. You don’t know history or basic facts it seems.

[@Rob2]

In the Netherlands we have been using the metric system for a very long time. I have never used other units in my life, but I remember that sometime in I think the seventies the use of old units in trade became prohibited. Before that, units line ounce and pounds were used, but they were the metric versions (100 grams for an ounce, 500 grams for a pound). So it was an easy conversion. There were also some units like an "el" for length in textile industry, but they already had become uncommon by then.

[@RobG001]

Another excellent video, well done, GGL. There was another example of a mix up regarding the refuelling of a passenger airliner, where the pilot worked out the amount of fuel the plane would need, but the ground crew put the amount in the other measurement. I can't remember the exact details) anyway the plane ran out of fuel, but they just about managed to glide to a airport, and saved hundreds of lives in the process. Some American gun guys were berating the metric system, then with no trace of irony going on about their 9mm pistols and 5.56mm AR type rifles. :)

[@_starfiend]

It was a Canadian flight.

[@alastairbarkley6572]

@@_starfiend Air Canada Flight 143 - the 'Gimli Glider' July 23 1983. A mix up converting volumetric (dipstick) fuel measurement to kg of fuel. The Board of Enquiry strongly recommended Air Canada immediately cease using 'mixed' metric/imperial units on their aircraft.

[@_starfiend]

@@alastairbarkley6572 Thanks, that's the one. I couldn't remember the details.

[@MrGBH]

The pirates actually did send the kilogram measure to the US government. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State had changed during the time it took, and the new guy didn't know what it was for

[@antoinemozart243]

🤣🤣🤣 typical American !

[@romad357]

@@antoinemozart243 I doubt ANYONE outside of France (except Thomas Jefferson) would have known what it was.

[@antoinemozart243]

@@romad357 Every European government knew what it was. You seem to forget that during the French Revolution there were plenty of Europeans in Paris. Typical yank ignorance.

[@BKKMekong]

US Customary and Imperial ARE NOT the same. American uses 16 Fluid Ounce to the Pint whereas Imperial is 160 Fluid Oz to the Gallon / 20 Floz per pint. Also US Floz is wine which is less dense than water used in Imperial therefore US Floz is about 4% larger by Volume

[@richardsinger01]

Floz is defined using wine? That's completely mad! What strength of wine defines the floz? How are the other ingredients specified? At least water is a pure substance even if the floz is somewhat arbitrary.

[@SiqueScarface]

Growing up in a metric country, I know that old habits die slowly. Some people still call a piece of butter (250 g) "half a pound" (referring to the Prussian Tariff Pound, defined in 1868 as being exactly 0.5 kg). And here might be a lesson for the U.S.: 150 years ago, Prussia paved the way for a smooth adaptation to the Metric System by redefining customary units, so they become easily convertible to their metric equivalent. Instead of having a 453.59237 g pound, Prussia was introducing a new pound exactly half a kilogram. Why not having a new ounce at 25 g, a new inch at 25 mm, feet of exactly 1/3 m or something similar?

[@lws7394]

That is something different. That is colloquialism. A pound ( or 'Pfund') is shorter than 500gr or half a kilo. And it concerns a metric pound. For the same reason (in NL) we use 'ons' for 100 gram. So you'd buy 1.5 ons bacon .. In fact I still do use feet for estimating a distance. Literally with my feet i step the distance foot by foot. But it is for estimating, when without a measure tape, not for measuring.

[@cr10001]

I'm a fan of 'near-enough' conversions for rough estimating - 25mm = 1 inch, 3 metres = 10 feet etc etc. BUT I don't think it practical or wise at this stage to redefine the the inch for example. Too many existing pieces of e.g. precision machinery are dimensioned in 'old inches' (25.4mm) for a set of 'New Inch drills' (25mm) to cause anything but confusion. Similarly the mile is near-enough to 1.6km so, for practical purposes, saying 16km = 10 miles is quite accurate enough for planning a trip - BUT if you want to use GPS or accurate surveying then your miles had better be converted precisely (1.609344 km)..

[@lws7394]

@@cr10001 No matter what you are fan of. The costs of not using metric are staggering. the millimetre/metre is the best unit for construction. a builder who constructed one house with imperial/customary units vs. an identical one with metric units was left with two 5 ton of waste material for the 'imperial' house, which leads to 10-15% higher building cost ( and not talking about other industrial costs) .. Construction professionals spend a large portion of their time adjusting and readjusting errors. US science teachers spent 5% of their time with conversion metrics/customary units. Health care workers converse between medication metrics and patients customary weights back and forth and this leads to under/overdosing. Not using metrics would cost US society $16 per citizen per day, or almost a whopping $ 2 Trillion per year ! ! On the other hand experiences from many other countries like Australia, South Africa, Ireland (imperial) or South Korea or Vietnam learned that the costs of a transition to metrics are not that high.

[@alicelund147]

Watching "popular science" from USA I thought volume was measured in "Olympic sized swimming pools" and area measured in (American) football fields.

[@cr10001]

I *hate* those stupid units, whoever is using them. I have no clue how big a football field is and swimming pools - it depends which pool you look at. Use a proper unit dammit! I don't care if reporters use inches, feet, yards, furlongs, millimetres, centimetres, kilometres, or 'square' or 'cubic' versions of same, I know what all those units mean.

[@ianhutchinson1783]

Met my American colleague in the 1980s and our respective weights became the topic of conversation. I told him I weighed 11 stone. (It was a long time ago!) "You still measure your self in rocks?" he exclaimed - to my great amusement. For those unfamiliar with the common old British unit, 1 stone is 14lbs or 6.35kg.

[@Rachel_M_]

I still use stones... But that's only so I can say I'm 10st, 28 lbs 😉 😂

[@johnlbirch]

Stones are also a great middle measure between pounds and hundredweights. 8 stone to a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight to a ton. A sack of potatoes is half a hundredweight.

[@davefrench3608]

Easy isn’t it.

[@johnlbirch]

@@Rachel_M_ Sound much better than 168lb!

[@Rachel_M_]

@@johnlbirch sounds better than 76kg too 😂

[@docsmellyfella]

US pints are 16 fl oz vs 20 fl oz in the UK, hence also bigger gallons.

[@Phiyedough]

They do have pints but they seem to prefer to use quarts. Just like they do have tons but they would rather say 40,000 pounds than 20 tons.

[@henrybest4057]

Yes. I was taught that "A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter." US pints weigh only one pound. US tons are also smaller than Imperial tons, 2000lb compared to 2240lb. The Imperial ton is very close to the Metric tonne (2204.6lbs). The US ton is known as the short ton. The Imperial ton is known as the long ton.

[@andyf4292]

so theyre even worse drinkers than we suspected!

[@Ghnarumen]

The US uses what was equivalent to the ‘Queen Anne’ gallon.

[@kathrynwhitby9799]

more bang for our buck. yes?

[@harrybarrow6222]

I am a Brit, and yes, I remember when the UK went metric before we joined the EEC. But we learned the metric system in science classes in the 1950s. Scientists have used metric for a long time, because it is simpler and more coherent. (1 cubic metre of water weighs 1000 kg - a metric tonne. Or 1 cubic cm of water weighs 1 gram.) Scientists and engineers here use metric. The older generation of the public grew up with imperial units, so they are still around. Officially for trade we use metric, but often containers may display imperial as well. Miles are the only imperial units I still think in regularly. They probably still exist because of the expense of changing all the road signs. Petrol is now sold in litres instead of gallons, and engines are built with metric specs. We have rated cylinder size in cc as long as I can remember. And we still think about miles per gallon or litre. So… UK metrication is still a work in progress. 😀

[@lookoutforchris]

The US was in the metric system long before the UK. We are the metric system. We’re resigning the kilogram right now. You’re welcome.

[@EwanMarshall]

that and government stupidity, torie government was trying to undo metrificaion in the name of freedom. the results of the public consultations were 1st keep it as it is and 2nd place was to get rid of the little exceptions and fully go metric. Government quietly dropped it in embarrasment, but some torie politicians didn't like this...

[@cr10001]

British car engine cylinder sizes have been in cc or litres 'for ever', probably because of the German / French influence on early cars. Bore and stroke are typically quoted in millimetres too. American cars are, of course, always cubic inches. However, steam locomotives (British) have always had the cylinder dimensions quoted in inches (and the cubic capacity of the cylinders has never been used as a rating for engine size). There's a fundamental problem converting fuel consumption - not only are British miles per gallon different from American ones (because the gallons are different sizes!) but the Metric measure - litres per 100km - is the inverse ratio from mpg so you can't use a straightforward 'conversion factor'.

[@Ubique2927]

6m of 4x2, 3 sheets of 8x4x19mm plywood, 2 x 4inch paint brushes, for 2 ltrs of paint. 1 kilo of 4 inch nails, one 10ft ladder, 3 x 2 gallon buckets. etc. All at the same Builders yard. Also: I want a 27 inch monitor with my brand new 2024 computer.

[@FasterLower]

Sorry not seeing the issue. I've seen components specified as: 100 mm +/- 3 thou (of an inch)

[@Ubique2927]

@@FasterLower if you can’t see the issue you are blind. This is in the UK.

[@FasterLower]

@@Ubique2927 🤣

[@FasterLower]

@@Ubique2927 Sorry, being ironic. Go UK! I measure my car performance in miles/liter ;-)

[@windyfarmer.6095]

But if you ask for a 4 by 2 the guys will sell you 100 by 50. Whatever way you ask they change it to the opposite, surely it's not still funny, they do it 100 times a day.

[@cheddarfish225]

Very simply, Metric is the better system. No discussion needed.

[@bogyldenkrne2518]

Denmark adopted the metrric system fully around 1908. The width of lumber, or pipes are still spoken of and sold in inches. On the shelf it may say 2,54cm or 10,5cm. That's one and four inches. So you ask for a 4 x 4 and get a 10,5 x 10,5.

[@johnp8131]

I use both because I'm old! The only time I ever really had a problem was when working alongside the US Airforce in the seventies and eighties and always having to double check their volume measurements against ours.

[@andyangyh]

In France we bought 2 metres of 4x2 wood. The 4 and 2 are inches! Even the French couldn´t explain that one

[@torstenbrunke4026]

But if you buy a 2 by 4 in the USA it isn't 2 by 4...

[@juneabbey9538]

@dn3087 not the whole world. Only a few places which still haven't got the memo. Most of the world uses metric for everything.

[@torstenbrunke4026]

@dn3087 But you don`t have to calculate with the width of a tyre.

[@greentriumph1643]

@@juneabbey9538 Bess your heart!

[@mardiffv.8775]

4 X 2 inch = 10 X 5 cm. But when you plywood sheets in the Netherlands the length is either 244 or 122 cm. Not 250 or 125cm. Why? 244 cm = 8 foot and 122 cm = 4 foot.

[@glengosling5636]

Although UK mixes metric and imperial, I must say metric is so much more simple. 1s and 10 against 1and 3/16th.

[@simonroyle2806]

I was at a UK primary school in the early 1970s. I recall being told that we weren't being taught Imperial measures because the country had just joined the EEC (EU) and were going metric. That only partly happened so I had to self teach the Imperial measures I needed such as feet/inches/miles, but no idea about quarts, furlongs etc. The one that gets me is how efficient your car is. I have to multiply the litres by 4.55 to get gallons and the divide the miles covered by fuel used to get MPG. Having then lives in the US, I realise that US gallons are only 3.78 litres, which enhances the impression of how inefficient US gas guzzlers are!

[@daoudfakhri6490]

You mentioned that the Met Office stopped measuring the temperature in Fahrenheit in 1970, but I remember the BBC continued to state temperatures in their forecasts in both Fahrenheit and Celsius until 1985, when they switched to CGI presentation. Strangely, I can judge high temperatures in Fahrenheit - I know how hot e.g. 70F or 80F feels, but have got no conception about cold temperatures in Fahrenheit.

[@Birko64]

My brother was a motor mechanic in the 1970's UK. He had to buy two tool kits because many older UK made cars had Imperial nuts and bolts whereas all modern UK cars, imported European and Japanese cars had metric nuts and bolts. Tool are very expensive and also these was the nightmare of someone mixing up the spanners and wrenches between the tool boxes. At school we were taught in metric in 1970's, but had old text books for physics because the school couldn't afford to buy new ones. Converting the answer to anything that was a sensible took more time than working out the result. Miles per hour ton weights as a unit of energy didn't go down very well with the teacher. I think the only countries that still use Imperial units are USA, Myanmar and Liberia.

[@ethelmini]

A kg is a litre of water, which is 1000 cubic centimeters. So all the French had to send those Yanks was a metre, or 100th of one. A metre was one 10 millionth of the distance between the Earth's poles, measured on the surface at sea level. So it could be measured astronomically.

[@Brian3989]

Think USA vehicles are changing to Metric sizes, because everyone else does.

[@johnbusby5614]

He actually needed 3 sets of tools, the third being Whitworth spanners. I used to be a motorcycle mechanic in the USA and had two tool sets, the missing one being Imperial. As it was, I never worked on Harleys, only limey bikes and rice burners.

[@HweolRidda]

​@@Brian3989my wife has a Japanese car built in USA and imported to Canada. I needed to buy some sockets in inches because the wheel nuts aren't metric, although most of the car is.

[@cr10001]

It was worse than that. In the 50's (?) the British car industry changed from Imperial Whitworth/BSF nuts and bolts to the American UNC/UNF nuts and bolts, with (mostly) different threads per inch and different spanner sizes. (The UNC/UNF spanners were also sometimes known as SAE or AF (across flats)). THEN later Britain went Metric... Fun fact: My 1978 Ford Escort uses Inch (UNF) nuts and bolts on the engine, but the gearbox and diff (made in ?Germany?) are Metric. The engine-to-gearbox bell housing bolts are 'specials', Metric M10 bolts with 1/2" AF heads, so you can take the engine out without needing to find a Metric socket.

[@ianb5949]

Certainly! Let me share an interesting aviation incident related to fuel uplift. On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, also known as the “Gimli Glider,” experienced a harrowing situation. Here’s what happened: Metric Mix-Up: The Boeing 767 aircraft was the first metric plane to fly in Canada. During refuelling in Montreal, ground crew manually loaded fuel using calculations based on the specific gravity of jet fuel. However, they used the wrong factor: 1.77 pounds per litre instead of the correct all-metric value of 0.8 kg per litre required for the new 767. Running Out of Fuel: As a result of this metric conversion error, the plane had only half the fuel it needed to reach Edmonton. When the aircraft was about 225 kilometres from Gimli, Manitoba, it began to run out of gas. Emergency Landing: Captain Robert Pearson, an experienced glider pilot, and First Officer Maurice Quintal, familiar with the Gimli airstrip, made a remarkable decision. They safely glided the powerless Boeing 767 to an abandoned airstrip near Gimli, Manitoba. The runway was being used for go-cart races at the time, and spectators had to scatter as the giant plane touched down. Nose Gear Issue: Due to hydraulic pressure loss, the nose landing gear couldn’t fully extend. The nose of the 767 slammed into the ground, but the fire in the nose was extinguished by quick-thinking go-cart racers using handheld fire extinguishers. Passengers exited via the rear emergency slide. Aftermath: The aircraft was repaired and put back into service. However, Air Canada disciplined the pilot and co-pilot for the near-tragedy. The Gimli Glider incident remains a testament to quick thinking, skilful piloting, and the importance of accurate metric conversions in aviation.

[@annoholics]

I think the Americans use a mix of metric and imperial. I don't think their lightbulbs work in horsepower or something similar, but they use Watt. A lot of Americans use 9mm guns. Their cameras use metric focal lengths, the ingredient labels of their food use gram. But if they want to confuse themselves, it is up to them.

[@larsrons7937]

Now that you mention it I never heard of anyone carrying a 0.354331 inch gun. And I bet the price of the gun was in $ and cents.

[@suntexi]

A gun is used for killing whatever its calibre is measured in. Metric is good for science things but useless for everday stuff. Use the right method for the application. You wouldn't use Windows on an Apple Mac. And the UK still uses a mix - a pragmatic solution.

[@NanoSchaap]

Canadá 🇨🇦 is also a mixed bag as per our proximity to our friends in USA 🇺🇸

[@katrinabryce]

The metric system is actually a British invention: In 1660 the Royal Society proposed that the standard unit of length should be the length of a pendulum that swings once per second. That length is 1 metre. It was however the French that ran with the idea and made it into a working measurement system. The Imperial system is not a British invention. It was invented by the Romans. So you have people in this country like Jacob Rees Mogg who are rejecting a sensible British invention in favour of an Italian invention so crazy that they've disowned it and want nothing to do with it.

[@tubataxidriver1959]

g=10 m/s/s? Hmm.

[@DevilishScience]

The original paper was written by John Wilkins, who went on to become Bishop of Chester, and it was written in Latin. Wilkins paper went further than proposing weights and measures but included a financial system based on a cubic decimetre (he didn't use these terms) of gold. He also finished up by saying that the system would never be taken up. The French system didn't use the pendulum but chose 1:40,000 of the Earth's circumference as 1000 m; it's just coincidence that they're almost identical.

[@katrinabryce]

@@DevilishScience The reason the French didn't use the pendulum is because they looked at it and found it wasn't accurate enough. But the metre is now linked to the second based on the speed of light.

[@Just_another_Euro_dude]

Sure, sure... In the rest of the world Metric system is a French invention spread around the Europe by Napoleon. Please no need to lie.

[@MRB-19]

What REALLY annoys me is in recipes that US ones tend to specify volumes of ingredients in even sizeable quantities rather than weights ... and that the "US customary volume" units are different UK Imperial volume units. Is there anywhere with an accurate correct conversation tabulation between these 3 systems of measuring?

[@Poliss95]

@MRB-19 Yes there is. Catherine Brown's Scottish Cookery book ISBN 10: 1841831042 ISBN 13: 9781841831046 gives measurements in Imperial, Metric and "US customary volume" units.

[@adriangoodrich4306]

Indeed. I always ignore ANY recipe that states "cups" instead of g (or even ounces) or ml (or even fl oz). WTF IS a bloody "cup?"

[@MRB-19]

@@Poliss95 I don't need the whole book - just the conversion Tables. I was surprised that they don't seem to be out there on the 'net already. Unless someone else has found a 3-way conversion chart...

[@la-go-xy]

In the 1990s, when the supermarkets went metric, the customers seemed quite content once it was clear that only additionally a metric unit was printed. - Neither the package sizes nor the prices were to change. So, it was fine.

[@susannekalejaiye4351]

My first 12 years were in Canada - which was then solidly Imperial. Then came years in the us and figuring out that American cups and ounces were slightly smaller than Imperial so I had to be sure that my measurements all used one system. And then I moved to Finland. Solid metric. Still in Finland, retired, not planning on going non metric again My only real challenge is with recipes, but I solve those with Google.

[@HolgerJakobs]

The UK went metric in part when I visited the country for the first time in 1974. Supermarkets boastet: "New metric pack" everywhere. Unfortunately, the UK is still using miles, not km on the roads.

[@la-go-xy]

The speedometers in the cars have both, don't they?

[@Roque-Cachamuiña-gs1wd]

Traditional units had their uses. In Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, the "ferrado" was used. It was a unit of volume, it was the amount of grain that could fit in a wooden box of certain dimensions. However, it was used as a unit of surface area, since small farms were indicated in "ferrados", that is, the grain they could produce. This was because taxes to feudal lords and the church were paid not on the surface of the land, but on its production. However, the measurements of the wooden boxes varied in each region. Today the ferrado is still used colloquially, but it is now a unit of surface area, 500 m2, very useful for use in measuring small farms, but when buying or selling or registering a farm, the m2 is used.

[@larsrons7937]

That's interesting. I guess that's how we in Denmark count farm sizes in "barrels" which used to be the yield of a farm but now it's a certain size of area. Thanks for your input.

[@ianhutchinson1783]

The US Geological Survey have used the metric system since the mid 1800's

[@robinhillyard6187]

Good summary. Yes, I remember the conversion well and am definitely on team metric. I live in the US now but when in UK, I enjoy having a pint at 4, 5, or 6 degrees.

[@charlestaylor9424]

When Ireland converted I visited in Dublin and they had converted taxis into charging by the kilometre but roadsigns were still in miles.

[@seancassidy9897]

Ireland has gone further than the UK in converting - but casually, some of the old imperial metrics are still around - pounds seems archaic until someone starts referencing weight in stone.

[@mond56r89]

The truth is every country on the planet (including the USA), use both systems and often don't even realise. The next time you get into your car in the US, remember your tyres are an imperial diameter, but a metric width. Your spark plugs have an imperial reach, but a metric thread. There are scores of other examples where both metric and imperial are used. I doubt the World will ever go fully metric.

[@pramona1837]

That’s true. I am from Germany and we are using 90% or more the metric system, but for monitors, TVs, Displays of Smartphones or Tablets they are always described in Zoll/ inches. Also a lot of people using Pound and Kilo simultaneously (e.g. for Cooking recipes and nobody says 1/2 Kilo of butter, but 1 pound. Same with PS/Kw (PS = Pferdestärke (horse power) and Kw means Kilowatt to measure a power of a vehicle. Most people using both of it.

[@silverghost131]

us gallon (3.78541 ltr ) is different to a uk gallon ( 4.54609 ltr )

[@malcolmolafson5654]

In the 1970s Canada and the US planned to switch to metric. Conversion was in progress until 1980 when Reagan was elected and he cancelled the conversion. Canada continued with the conversion and now we have kg, Km, Celsius, etc

[@seanmcmichael2551]

I was born 1960 in Northern Ireland, and I very definitely recall using all the old units - pounds, shillings, pennies, ha'penny, farthing, plus Fahrenheit, and miles, yards, feet, inches. I have lived in Dublin since 1998, so now even road distances and odometers are kilometers and metres. The area where I cant shake off using 'old school' is peoples' height and weight. If someone says they are 5ft-10in and 12st3lb, I more readily grasp that than in metric. GGL .... Maybe you covered in a previous clip (or a future one), but it would be worth outlining differences in Imperial vs US re. Fl oz, Pints, Gallons. Eg. A pint of beer this side of the pond is around 20% larger.

[@benetfernandezvalles847]

En la escuela nos hacían convertir las monedas inglesas a las suyas propias. Cuanto chelines son un libra etc. ERA UN HORROR.¡¡¡¡

[@larsrons7937]

@@benetfernandezvalles847 Yes I remember that from when I had to convert some old UK prices from before they changed the system. It got really messy when some prices were in guineas. It was a true horror.

[@billb207]

At primary school in England in the late 1970s, we were taught both metric and imperial units, and were quizzed weekly on them, including the conversion factors between them. Forty-five years later. I can still remember how many grams in an ounce (28.35), as well as how many pounds in a hundredweight (112). Now in my mid fifties, I use metric almost exclusively, aided a little by the fact I now live in Australia, a very metricated country, but one in which a person will still state their height in feet and inches.

[@ian_of_glos]

Interestingly, the American pint (16 fluid ounces) is less than an imperial pint (20 fluid ounces) - resulting in a lot of indignation when we visit pubs and bars in the USA.

[@TheRip72]

I'm from the UK but the US makes more sense in this respect. An ounce of water weighs ...an ounce. So a pint of water should surely weigh a pound. It does with the US system, but in the UK a pint is 20fl oz.

[@ivo367]

Imperial is easy! There’s 10 inches in a foot, 10 feet in a yard and a 1000 yards in a mile.

[@stevensibbet5869]

That is what should have happened hundreds of years ago, I think at one point Henry VIII was going to change our measurement system to a decimal system using such logic.

[@gmm5550]

Only three countries in the world use the imperial system as their official system of measurement: the U.S., Liberia and Myanmar liberia is a small country in westafrica with 6 million ppl myanmar is a nowdays wartorn country in se-asia with 55 million ppl And america..well a pretty backward place with 330 million people(teasing) Together they stand for less than 5 % of earth population =)

[@jameshaddock6909]

Don't be fooled... In the UK Sheet building materials are sold in sheets that measure 2448mm x 1224mm i.e. 8' x 4'... Many food products are still sold imperial sizes just described in grammes Then you have metricised sizes. You still buy "4" x 2"" timber but it's actually 100mm x 50mm... Also imperial units have been re-legalised post-Brexit, but they're mainly only used by a few die-hards...

[@markpstapley]

Laughable Tories held a public consultation post Brexit about units. They made it legal to sell wine in pints (thats UK pints not the older US pints). Precisely what nobody was asking for. Understandably no companies are offering wine in pints. A fairly large percentage surveyed said the UK should go 100% metric, which is not what the Tories wanted to hear.

[@BlueTangWebSystems]

Hmm. I know of some friends that would quite happily go for that measure

[@alastairbarkley6572]

Jacob Rees-Mogg's pet vanity project. It's like we've been governed by the cast of a pantomime for the last 8 years.

[@jameshaddock6909]

Churchill drank his champagne by the pint...

[@stevennelson9504]

When I was growing up, the US did take steps to switch to metric. I remember speed limit signs in MPH and KPH as well as distances in miles and kilometers. But with the election of Ronald Reagen all funding for the program stopped and that was the end of it. This is why we have a mix of measurements.

[@Nicksonian]

American exceptionalism and stupidity. Way back in 1970, during junior high school in Ohio, I learned about the metric system and my science teacher assured us that the United States would soon, or eventually go metric. I was all for it. Metric is much easier to deal with. Here I am, over a half century later, and I’m still waiting. Education in the U.S. has taken a nosedive, plus the skepticism of science, and the increase in NATIONALISM has doomed metric and it is the same thinking that will doom America. I measure my runs in kilometers, and more and more I cook measuring in grams instead of the silly old teaspoons, cups, etc.

[@mardiffv.8775]

Well, at least US medicine are measured in milligrams. A first step into metric for the US.

[@willvangaal8412]

@@mardiffv.8775 And bullits

[@mardiffv.8775]

@@willvangaal8412 Yep, 9 x 19 mm pistol cartridge/ round. 7.62 and 5.56 NATO rifle round.

[@JaapVanderHorst]

The Americans are already metric in many aspects, medicine (ml), guns (mm), engines (mm), Nuclear bombs (Megaton), electric power (Kilowatt), Nutritional food labels. So is America left behind?

[@danielkelly2210]

The joke is the metric system thrives in America’s troubled urban areas... “2 kilos, 5 grams, 9 mm”. :)

[@wayneturner7032]

I'm English and, basically, I use Imperial for everyday life and Metric for work/science. We were taught both at school and pretty much memorised all the conversion factors, so it's fairly simple to change, the only exception being negative temperatures in Fahrenheit, that takes a little bit of thought

[@frankhooper7871]

I do wish we [the UK] would finally drop the mile and accept the kilometre; despite being accustomed to distance in miles, I know we'd soon [-ish] get used to it. As to the 'cost' of changing the speed limit signs - easy answer: make all roads that are currently 30mph into roads that are 30kph etc. Slow traffic down and save lives.

[@tivvy-xf4kz]

Younger people in the UK are no longer taught imperial. My daughter doesn't know any imperial so I have to convert measurements when doing DIY to metric so she can see it. Contrary to popul;ar misconception we are fully metric. The only anomaly is miles. The cost to physically change or move ALL the signs and road markings was considered too expensive so we stayed with miles/mph. Our speedometers have read in MPH and Km's for years so going across to the continent or Ireland is no problem. Yes we have gone metric but in the DIY stores timber still comes in near imperial sizes as there would be a lot of waste with boards etc and our houses were built in imperial. Just for example a standard timber board/panel is 2440 x 1220 mm if you are puzzled it's basically an 8 x 4. Some metric/imperial measurements are closely matches BUT ONLY for envisaging eg 25mm is near an inch a yard/metre is app 3ft (note UK spelling of metre to avoid confusion with gas meters lol) An imperial gallon is 4.5 ltrs so reasonably easy to convert to gallons. 80kph is almost exactly 50mph so speed distance can be reckoned eg 40kph would be 25mph. Going back to the older people it's really entered the language and is always what we knew but it is dying out along with those old people and I'm one as well lol

[@gmm5550]

Now we only wait that u.k will drive on the same side as 97 % of the world*teasing* remember seeing a old clip from when Sweden changed to right side traffic 3 september 1967 05.00 in the morning..pretty cool and a MASSIVE countrywide adjustment Look it up..pretty cool =)

[@rhiwright]

Can confirm. I do order pints of beer in the pub, but instinctively consider "pint" the name of the glass, like highball and champagne flute are the names of drinking glasses

[@gmm5550]

@@rhiwright even in sweden we say "pint " if we are in a english or irish pub, think u get 40 or 50cl glass of tap beer then

[@anonymes2884]

@@gmm5550 I appreciate you're kidding but it's actually something like 30% of the world's countries that drive on the left and _roughly_ the same by population (India's really helping out we "Sinister siders" on that score :). Bear in mind that the UK, well, we, err, got about a bit back in the day :).

[@gmm5550]

@@anonymes2884 dammit i did forget about india..haha ok ur right..or left...or whatever=)

[@JAmediaUK]

Some industries in the UK went metric in the 1950s, and it has been a continuous move to metric ever since. Virtually everyone in the UK under 40 only knows metric. So in another 50 years the UK will be fully metric.

[@bonetiredtoo]

It is a dogs-dinner out there. Look at motorways: signposts are in miles but the distance markers are in km. I am happy to make an exception for pints though - beer in metric just doesn't sound right. There is a tendency for Brits to measure temperature in C if it is cold but F when it is hot! Doesn't 86F sound hotter than 30C? 😄

[@GirlGoneLondonofficial]

Haha! Ah, yes, 30C definitely doesn't have the same impressiveness to it!

[@tnit7554]

​​​@@GirlGoneLondonofficialand don't forget the windchill factor in the US. This was invented to make sound cold temperatures even more colder. 😂

[@BizzyX78]

----- @tnit7554 ----- - Very funny... Although I don't think that was their reason behind their experiments during their stay in Antartica, as if it wasn't cold enough there already. -----

[@Loanshark753]

In Norway we just ask "Do you want one half liter?".

[@bayareapianist]

I think you forgot to tell why Europeans still use Imperial systems! Car tires (tyers?!) and wheels, and all Plumbing Systems are still measued in inches throughout the world. Cars' powers still measure in horsepowers. Heaters outputs are measured in BTUs.

[@nigels.6051]

My car tyres measure 205mm in width and their pressure is in bars, my plumbing uses 15mm or 22mm pipe, and my car's petrol engine power is measured in kW, as is my electric heating - I am in UK! The Europeans like to use PS for car power, not sure why. When it comes to TV screens, everyone throughout the world uses "Inches", but they are not real inches, they are modified to allow for the curved part of a cathode ray tube, even when using flat screens.

[@johnwarr7552]

Cromwell's brother-in-law proposed a "metric" system in 1668 I believe.

[@stevensibbet5869]

It is such a damn shame that we didn't adopt it and implement it, and while he was at it he could have sorted out our money and decimalised that!

[@mariotabali2603]

0:33 Bri'ain. I love the way she says it. Girl is really halfway there

[@bertiesworld]

You can easily tell a real Brit. They swap between metric and imperial without even thinking about it. Whatever is the most convenient.

[@markdavies794]

Craftsman to apprentice "how long is that ladder", apprentice "2 metres and 3 inches long"

[@philipdrew1066]

And everyone thinks we aren't multi-lingual.

[@johnburns4017]

UK buys petrol in litres but rates fuel consumption by miles per gallon. How confusing and dumb.

[@coldlakealta4043]

same in Canada, which went metric in 1975

[@bluebell7152]

It's even worse, I think, because a US-gallon​ is different from a British one, so MPG in America will mean nothing to British consumers.

[@CY-ww1dm]

I was in à London cab last week. The navigation system was indicating the distance of the next turn in miles then it switched to feet when get closer. So ridiculous 😂

[@jameslewis2635]

And then there is the issue that there are a fair few Imperial units (gallons for instance) where the measurements differ between the UK and US standard units.

[@ajs11201]

Correct. I came to make a similar comment. At 3:00, the video indicates that the British Imperial and U.S. Customary units are essentially the same, and I guess that's true enough, but there are, indeed, some notable differences.

[@clivewilliams3661]

The UK gallon is 20fl oz and the US gallon is 16fl oz. The fluid ounces are the same, its just how many of them make a gallon thats different. The US version seems more logical since it co-ordinates with the weights of ounces and pounds, there being 16oz to 1lb. However, an imperial(UK) gallon of water weighs 10lbs - confused, you will be!

[@MattDunny]

The UK gallon is not 20fl oz it is 160fl oz therefore a UK (imperial) gallon weighs 10lb.

[@ajs11201]

@@clivewilliams3661 Actually, no. The UK gallon is 160 ounces and the US gallon is 128 ounces. You're describing pints, which in the UK are 20 ounces and in the US are 16 ounces. In both countries, two pints make a quart and four quarts make a gallon, hence the reason the gallons are 160 and 128 ounces, respectively. And, yes, regarding the weight of a U.S. pint of water--as a schoolchild in the U.S., we learned that "a pint is a pound the world around" to help us remember that one pint of water weighs a pound (or 16 fluid ounces are also 16 ounces by weight). However, typical of us ethnocentric Americans, we seem to regard "the world around" as only applying to the U.S., as the British pint weighs considerably more than a pound!

[@henrybest4057]

@@clivewilliams3661 The UK PINT is 20fl oz and the US PINT is 16fl oz. The US fl oz is not exactly the same as the Imperial fl oz, (the definitions vary) but rhe difference is so slight, it can be ignored.

[@alantheinquirer7658]

I was a child when we switched currency to decimal. I can remember the 'old money' ... but decimal makes far more sense and money calculation easy. The metric system - in measurements - makes more sense and only looks confusing when converting one to the other. Another US vs. UK measurement strangeness is temperature. I can never get my head around Fahrenheit and understand 0 degrees C water freezes and 100 degrees C boils.

[@qwadratix]

We still used Fahrenheit when I was a child (UK) so I was around for the swapover to Centigrade. No biggie because I was a science nerd, but I still instinctively think of 'hot weather' as being anything over 80. But you're right, people only have trouble when they worry about conversion. If you just think in terms of the unit in use, it's easy.

[@maudeboggins9834]

My husband would agree with you wholeheartedly that the metric when calculating anything is far easier & should be used with calculating weight in planes. Apparently passengers are an average of 80kg on a plane. I am fine with both. I still like to say "give an inch" or "what is the mileage on the clock". Before I tell my husband a story I change the feet & inches I literally multiply by 3 from ft & inches to get the metres.

[@rigamortice]

No it doesn't

[@qwadratix]

@@prva9347 Farthing sure, do you remember the silver threepenny bit? (My mother had a few of these stashed away. They were legal tender but rarely seen in circulation)

[@alantheinquirer7658]

@@prva9347 I used to have a collection in a tin of 'em!

[@jamesgilbart2672]

Also, US recipes tend to use cups for some ingredients like butter which can be awkward. The UK currency went decimal very quickly back in 1971 but for some there was an emotional attachment to old weight and volume units so the move to metric has been gradual. Yes, some measures will probably stick; ordering 0.568L of beer in a pub doesn't sound as snappy as asking for a pint.

[@MarcusMorris-q6r]

Note how our newspapers sensationalize the weather reports - Fahrenheit in summer, Celsius in winter!

[@MichaelJohnsonAzgard]

I've never seen them do that.

[@davefrench3608]

I do that. Above 15c Fahrenheit shows the temperature better , below 15 is centigrade

[@jonathanmorgan1882]

Wait till the Daily Mail discovers Kelvin

[@MarcusMorris-q6r]

@@jonathanmorgan1882 👍😂

[@bobm4378]

@@davefrench3608 do research!! Centigrade was properly defined as boiling point of water at sea level = 100, and freezing point =zero.. Kelvin is absolute zero upwards..

[@PaulBoden-d7p]

As a British engineer of advancing years I think in imperial and work in metric and have done for decades When I was at school in the sixties the metric system was briefly mentioned as one of those bizarre things that Johnny Foreigner indulged in.

[@clivewilliams3661]

I was also in secondary education in 1960's and we used imperial measurements for the first half of that decade, especially in Physics and then metric in second half, where it was a revelation and so much easier arithmetic.

[@thequ4lm69]

My favorite confusion about the imperial system is that 1 pound of cotton is heavier than 1 pound of gold. No wonder it has so many failures in history.

[@lookoutforchris]

The Brits should fix their Imperial system then.

[@AndrewOliverHome]

@@lookoutforchriswe use metric for both in the UK. It’s the US that use the Troy system for metals and the avoirdupois system for everything else. A pound in the Troy system is lighter.

[@rickwhite4137]

@@AndrewOliverHome The insanity of the imperial system is way beyond all logic! 😂

[@kentl7228]

A ton of feathers or a ton of bricks? Compared to a tonne? A short ton is lighter than a tonne which is lighter than a long ton.

[@thequ4lm69]

@@kentl7228 One is metric, the other is imperial

[@marvindoolin1340]

I taught junior high math for a few years in the 1970's during the time we thought there would be a shift. FWIW, my certification was in English and social studies, but I was assigned to teach math in that small rural district. I found metrics extremely easy to work with, but I faced a great deal of resistance from parents. I did my best to explain that it works just like dollars and cents, and all the various measures inter-relate. No one cared. Again, FWIW, the British and American liquid measurements are not the same despite sharing their names. I don't remember the exact differences, but as I understand it, a pint of beer in the UK is larger than in the US. I'll happily accept corrections.

[@scottlavery1765]

USA pint and gallon is small than UK's pint and gallo

[@Bb13190]

Very good video ! Thanks You can also add that the US imperial units are defined by their value in the metric system.

[@gamingtonight1526]

And yet a U.S. Gallon is not the same as a U.K. Gallon, and there are other imperial differences too. So America didn't copy the "U.K. Imperial system" 100%! Also, it should be noted that even in America, all science, technology, airlines, chemists, etc all are now 100% metric. Making America at least 70% metric with regard to its industries!

[@TerryD15]

The system in America is called American Customary Units, while based on Imperial systems there are significant differences, so it is not 'Imperial'. There was an attempt to convert the Pound Sterling to decimal in the 1840s, the 2 shilling coin was introduced which was a 1/10th of a pound which was 20 shillings (20/-), however the attempt was abandoned due to wars, but we still had the 2 shilling coin called a 'Florin'. Around the same time there was a move to adopt metrication, but it failed due to the same reasons and some Conservative government antipathy. The ISO (International Standards Organisation) committee had not been established at that time so the system was still seen as 'French'.

[@davehooper5115]

I,m in england i remember going decimal in 1971, and i have learnt in imperial as well as metric, i use litres and i use inches and miles, i work with both

[@kathrynwhitby9799]

as someone who grew up in the 70s (metric & decimalisation) i use a mix of both as needed.

[@MichaelJohnsonAzgard]

I switched to metric straight away back in the 70's, and have used it for everything since. I enjoy that it annoys people, as they've had decades to get use to it.

[@lookoutforchris]

You were 100 years late to the party then. The US redefined the inch based on the meter in 1866. We signed the Treaty of the Meter, officially joining the metric system in 1875. Where have you been? And where do you work? Everyone uses metric, except for people in low level jobs who don’t have to know how anything works. So are you a Walmart greeter or a server at Denny’s? If so stop bugging the customers about the metric system.

[@edwardcanavan]

I started as an apprentice machinist in 1972. It was mandated we would be transitioning to metric as I learned my trade. This would have been a difficult transition added to an already stressing learning process but well worth it in the long run. It did not take. That is the greatest American embarrassment in my life time.

[@grahamstubbs4962]

It's all a bit mad really as the definition of an inch is 25.4mm and has been for about sixty years. Some measurements are just more convenient sometimes than others. I use both systems. I'm utterly shameless. Just don't get them mixed-up. Accidents will happen. 🙂

[@wessexdruid7598]

Not for an inch in the US - again, slightly different.

[@grahamstubbs4962]

@@wessexdruid7598 Prove it.

[@BizzyX78]

----- @grahamstubbs4962 ----- - Like the 'NASA'-joke that Robin Williams made... That one always makes me laugh. -----

[@wessexdruid7598]

@@BizzyX78 You can't drop that into the conversation and not tell it.

[@BizzyX78]

----- @wessexdruid7598 ----- - Sorry, I thought of it as a 'If you know, you know'-type of thing... But here goes... The joke was; The team at NASA who designed the 'Martian Rover' and its' transportation, taking it to Mars. The technician admitted that they did the calculations for the lander in 'Feet', but he accidentally programmed the lander in 'Meters'. In the immortal words of 'Robin Williams'...: "Instead of landing, the focker got buried!" -----

[@martinbond5166]

One of the peculiarities of the measurement systems used in the US and UK is that not all imperial measures are the same as the US Customary measures. For instance, the Imperial pint is 20 fl oz, whereas the US pint is 16 fl oz. The reason for this is that prior to the 1825 act the pint was a different measure according to what you measured. So a pint of water was different to a pint of wine which was different to a pint of beer and so on. When it came to standardising the what the pint was for all fluids the US used a different pint to the British.

[@wessexdruid7598]

The fluid ounces are different, too.

[@Dr.D00p]

Next week I'll be taking a 135 mile road journey, travelling at about 80Kph, using about 3 gallons of petrol that costs about £1.43 a litre...

[@henrybest4057]

So your car does about 45 MPG?

[@timoakley277]

How do you know it uses 3 gallons? You buy the stuff in litres....

[@henrybest4057]

@@timoakley277 Divide the number of miles by the car's MPG. My 12 year old car tells me the curerent and average MPG on the dashboard.

[@euanthomas3423]

You mean 80 km/h. Small k for kilo (K is kelvin - absolute temperature) and the use of p (per) is deprecated in metric units.

[@davefrench3608]

@@timoakley277 the conversion ratio is 4.54

[@librarian16]

We live in the UK and buy frozen vegetables from the supermarket. Brussuls Sprouts and Broad Beans are supplied in "metric" quantities (1K or 750g) butpeas come in metric marked bags but these are conversions from Imperial- 960g which is two pounds.

[@henrybest4057]

The UK started decimalisation in 1849, with the introduction of the florin (two shillings or one tenth of a pound) coin. It took another 120+ years to get fully decimal coinage.

[@rs1884]

Don't forget the Double Florin introduced between 1887-1890, equivalent to 20 pence

[@brigidsingleton1596]

When I first worked with horses (1970) my Manageress had a small (fleabitten grey) Arab pony mare named Florin, because she was "splay-footed in front, but pigeon-toed behind" (or vice versa, I forget now!!), and our Boss said, "She's (the pony mare) not worth two bob"* ...a 'bob' was slang for one shilling... So, poor Florin wasn't worth two bob: two shillings* or: one Florin!! 🐴🤨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿♥️🇬🇧🐴🤔🖖

[@raystewart3648]

That was the very best explanation about this subject, way better than other KZbinr's I have come across, even my 8 year old nephew understood it. Great research, thanks.

[@clivewilliams3661]

I am bilingual in metric and imperial. I started in construction in 1972 on the cusp of the change over. One of my first tasks was to confirm the measurements of a long office building that was set out in imperial in feet, inches and fractions of inches as on site they couldn't make the building the same size on the two main elevations. I had to do the calculation long hand on paper, which took me all day as I couldn't get two sets of arithmetic to equal each to confirm the size. Eventually, i came to a concensus and found that the two lengths of the elevations were indeed different. Had that been set out in metric it would have taken me about 10 minutes with a calculator. Our whole industry calculates and sets things out in metric now but I have intelligible conversations mixing both sets of measurements to this day 50 years on. The RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors), who have charge of construction's Standard Method of Measurement insisted about 20 years ago that all building dimensions should be in metric, however, it is commonplace to find land being sold by their members in acres and building space in square feet. Interestingly, the whole industry has imperial sized components like doors and windows that can be bought as imperial or metric but with the measurements in metric. The shape of an imperial component is very often more natural than the metric one because the size was derived from natural measurements, whereas the metric equivalent has been derived from the scientific base. A 1981mm x 762mm (6' 6" x 2' 6") imperial door has much more pleasing proportions than its metric counterpart of 2040mm x 726mm

[@gregoryvnicholas]

The building industry is metric but it does use 300mm as a basic unit. A measure that is eerily close to an imperial foot and shares the advantage of being divisible by 2, 3 and 4. A back-handed to compliment to the hidden features of the imperial system.

[@clivewilliams3661]

@@gregoryvnicholas A 300mm grid is often used for building planning as it accommodates many features like wall thicknesses, door widths/heights, room heights, brick dimensions (300mm is 4 courses of brickwork vertically and 900mm is 4 courses horizontally), many other dimensions are simple fractions or multiples of this figure.

[@steveknievel]

I've always used both, they both have their benefits.

[@deanstuart8012]

I find the weight differences to be facinating. I cannot for the life of me work out human weights in kilograms. Stones make much more sense. I do struggle with Americans weighing themselves in pounds as dividing by 14 to get a weight in stones isn't exactly intuitive. However I recently saw a Bob Hope USO tour of Vietnam in 1967 on KZbin. One of the female entertainers, (it might have been Raquel Welch) said that she weighed eight stone. When did the US drop the "stone"?

[@andyf4292]

base 14.... where the hell did that come from?

[@gothicwriter9897]

I use both as someone born in the UK in 1958. I remember the money system changing to 100 pence to the pound from 240 pennies to the pound when I was at school. That was confusing for a few years but we grew out of it. The last kilometre in Parkrun is definitely longer than the first four because I run Parkrun most weeks and the last kilometre is definitely the hardest... 😂

[@gillianmeehan3206]

It seems really odd that we still measure TV screens, phone screens and computer screens in inches

[@clivewilliams3661]

And that measurement in inches is on the diagonal that makes the screen a different o/a size depending whether its 4:3 or 16:9 or widescreen. This really cries out for the actual size of the screen to be quoted, its only one extra dimension.

[@euanthomas3423]

These are type descriptions not measurements. The manufacturing drawings for these items will be in mm.

[@clivewilliams3661]

@@euanthomas3423 They may describe the screens but they are actual dimensions of the diagonal between corners. I don't doubt that the manufacturing drawings are in mm but to achieve that inches diagonal measurement they will have had to use a conversion from inches to metric that then determined the orthogonal sizes in metric.

[@KeesBoons]

Which are never accurate. Maybe that does say something about the measurement system.

[@BizzyX78]

----- @user-xi6nk4xs4s ----- - Well, that depends on who is doing the measuring and how the measuring is being done... Back in the day when wide-screen came to the market, it was a real annoyance for a lot of people when trying to pick out a TV that would fit in or on their existing furniture. They looked at ads and saw the number, let's say '32 inches', took a quick measurement at home, went to the store and bought the TV. They brought it home only to find that it didn't fit like they thought it would, 'cause they didn't account for the loudspeakers and bezel. This is not such a big deal anymore compared to what it used to be back in the day because for most TVs nowadays the bezel is so tiny or practically non-existent and the loudspeakers are either part of the screen itself or located on the backside of the TV. -----

[@davidhall4499]

I can remember the UK going metric. I was employed by an automotive manufacturer changing thousands of engineering drawings from imperial to metric using two CAD systems. It was costly as as all measuring and guage equipment had to be replaced

[@steverpcb]

Since when has the UK gone metric ? We buy beer by the pint and the road signs are in miles, and measure our height in feet and inches !

[@Paul020253]

we buy our petrol or diesel in litres, just having bought some new furniture-all measured in mm or cm. A new duvet cover is 200cm x 200 cm. I noticed that more and more road signs are beginning to use metres. Hopefully soon the plan to change sign posts to kilometres will take effect-it was supposed to happen in 1971 and was shelved because a lot of people complained and asked that our signposting system remain unchanged until those who couldnt or wouldnt chnage were no longer around, fifty three years on, my guess is that none of them are...

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Speeds for flying and sailing are given in knots (natical miles per hour) and distances in nautical miles. 1 nautical mile is based on 1 minute (1/60 of 1degree) of meridian arc length at the equator.

[@euanthomas3423]

Nautical mile and knot are essentially measurements of angle and angular velocity scaled by the earth's radius, which obviously makes them convenient for navigation.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@euanthomas3423 and the metre was defined, originally, as 1 ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator on a great circle. Notice the similarity in the original definition to the nautical mile? If the natical mile is angular measurement, then so to is the metre.

[@noelmasson]

Or one minute of latitude. Knots are a perfect example of a unit of measurement being defined for a specific purpose.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@noelmasson you mean like angles are measured in degrees, temperature is measured in Celcius or Fahrenheit. Every unit of measurement is defined for a specific purpose. Plus, we already have statute miles.

[@coffeeisgood102]

It is a hassle dealing with the Imperial system here in the US. Because so much of the world is metric I am constantly converting C to F or miles to kilometres, etc. The US needs to get on board.

[@danensis]

In 1970 I was working for a manufacturing electrical engineers. Our 5ft flourescent light fittings were 1500mm, 4ft ones were 1200mm, 6ft ones were 1800mm and 8ft were 2400. I know a one pound jar of jam is 454g, and five litres of petrol is a gallon.

[@MrZnarffy]

I''m Swedish, and while me metrified long ago, some industries took longer... The last holdout for us was the building business I think, who only changed in the 80's. But even today here you buy a TV or monitor in inches. For the US the switch is pretty easy, as if you want to go the long route, all you need is to completely switch the schools to metric. 30-40 years later the swich is a non-issue.