"Santa Barbara Charter School has secured a $5,000 grant from the Santa Barbara Education Foundation for its innovative Meaningful Metric Measurement for the Whole School initiative."

https://www.noozhawk.com/learning-metric-system-measures-up-at-santa-barbara-charter-school/

2024-10-26

The Tico Times, an English-language website in Costa Rica, presents a guide to the metric system for Americans planning to live there.

It clearly states some of the difficulties with US measurements and outlines the basics of the metric system. Although it discusses metres, kilometres, litres and degrees Celsius it doesn't mention kilograms. In the opening paragraph it says:

If you are one of the estimated 125,000 US citizens who now call Costa Rica home, welcome to the world of metric.

The final paragraph says:

Disdain for the metric system is a peculiarly US American thing, alongside American football, chain restaurants, hot dog eating contests, more guns than people, and a car for every driver. My message to all USA natives coming to Costa Rica is this:

Life can be made just a bit simpler once here by familiarizing yourselves with the metric system.

(Italics in the original text.)

We never completed metrication. For example, we still use MPH. Most people can't remember why but I am of that age where I do.

When we joined the EU in the 70s it was considered a force to change and modernised the UK. Metrication started before we joined. The fact that the EU also wanted metrication was considered a positive. Things started to change in the 80s when we started to demonise the EU. The myth was created that the British people were against metrication but the EU was bullying Britain to convert. Those who wanted to complete conversion were unpatriotic cowards who did not want to stand up to the bullying. Hence, in the 80s metrication stopped.

Now we have Brixit. It is now possible to argue that completing metrication has nothing to do with the EU. We want to complete metrication not because we are unpatriotic cowards who want to surrender to the EU but we believe that it makes sense to have only one system.

What are your thoughts?

2024-09-10

farmprogress.com, an online farming magazine has a look at the work of weights and measures inspectors in California.

(From a link in the NIST Office of Weights and Measures newsletter.)

2024-10-22

From the Central Virginian, a guest column describing the closing stages of a Virginian couple's trip to Canada and their return home. I'm not sure how long they were in Canada, but they seemingly didn't think it worthwhile to learn what a litre or kiometre was in US measurements before they went there.

Dear Readers, after visiting Niagara Falls in Canada, we packed the Batmobile up and headed back to the United States. It was nice to return to American units of measure, for sure. The metric system caused some hilarious conversations between Rick and I. “The GPS says to turn left in 2.9 kilometers.” “How far is that?” “I don’t know, I forget if a kilometer is more or less than a mile. But I’m pretty sure we turn in either one mile or five miles.” “Dang metric system!” I saw gasoline prices posted as we passed by gas stations, but since the pricing was per liter, I really had no idea how much gas was. And then there was the conversion factor of Canadian money to U.S. money. The whole week was a big ole guessing game!

This is aimed at anyone from countries that haven't metricated road signs, temperature, or fuel economy, so primarily the US and the UK. I've noticed some cars make it easy to change, and others make it necessary to read the manual. On some it's not possible at all.

How do you change your car's settings to display metric units if possible? What is the make and model?

I'm wondering if USA makes military equipment to imperial specifications to ensure that any maintenance on those pieces of equipment can only be done using parts made in the USA?

Or does the USA sell military equipment that can be maintained with all-metric components?

There was a site called Metric Pioneer that used to have articles and such on it. You can still find it in search results, but if you go to it, you get 403 forbidden. What happened? Is it going to be restored at some point?

https://metricpioneer.com/

In some Italian packages:

https://preview.redd.it/gaiwma8514wd1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07e88edfc162de4bd1a572ccbde60772897db29f

I read this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_festival

There's an instance of "194 tubs of cider and perry". But how much is a British tub for cider? My Merriam-Webster states it's about 4 (US?) gallons.

Who knew that 6 feet was 11 meters. Great job to the team behind this science kit

Example display of \"MetriClock\"

Many times, people ask about "Metric Time" and why don't we switch to "Metric Time" with a power of 10 number of hours per day, minutes, per hour, and seconds per minute (maybe even extending to Metric Calendar with power of 10 days per week, weeks per month, months per year).

The basic answer is that to do that that would require re-definitions of the values of the second and the days/weeks/months, which would be very difficult to get the whole world to agree to that.

For the hours/minutes/seconds per day, the day currently has 86400 seconds per day and to switch to a different number per day would require a redefinition of the length of the second which would require changing values for everything that depends on that which is a lot of things.

I am NOT suggesting we (the world) switch to "Metric Time", but it is interesting to play with different values for hours/minutes/seconds per day and see what it would look like.

I've written a program in Python language (which works on Linux, Mac, and Windows) which can do that. The user can select numbers for HH:MM:SS on the command line and then it will display legacy and new clocks that tick at the same rate and display that time in the clock GUI.

If the total number of hours * minutes * seconds does not equal 86400 then it is a redefinition of the second (either more than 1 new second per legacy second, or less than 1 new second per legacy second) and it displays that as the multiplication "F"actor.

The program can be found at https://github.com/metricationmatters/metriclock.git URL.

If you have suggestions or ideas on how to improve the program, please create issues or even better "merge requests" with your bug fixes or improvements.

The Resources tab has been restored to the sidebar. Thank you u/blood-pressure-gauge for sending me the text from the Wayback Machine.

Please make a comment if there are any errors, any broken links, or if you have any useful links to add to the list. I have tested the links and they work OK on my iMac using Firefox.

I would like to make the Resources list more systematic and group similar resources together, so if you have any suggestions on how to arrange it please make a comment.

Thank you,

klystron, Moderator

Original quote:

I am writing this essay on a bleak January day in Boston, and the outside temperature is −2° Fahrenheit

Italian translation by Antonella Garbetta:

Sto scrivendo questo libro in una desolata giornata di gennaio di Boston, e la temperatura esterna è di −9°C

−2 °F = −19 °C

Just a typo? A missing "1"? Or perhaps −19°C was too impressive for Italian readers? 🤔

The author of this article was prescribed exactly 81 milligrams of aspirin to inhibit blood clotting after he had a stent installed in an artery. Why exactly 81 milligrams, he asks, and follows a long trail that leads to the barleycorn grain used as the basis of apothecaries measure and the English inch.

Notes: 1 - The article is 5 months old, but the search engines only turned it up today.

2 - The author mentioned the British discarding the Apothecaries measure and making the metric system the only legal system for measuring pharmaceutical products in 1898. Other information I have says the British pharmaceutical industry adopted the metric system around 1962 – 63. Does anyone have any information on this?

2024-10-05

An article on a sports news website thesportsrush.com tells us how Shane van Gisbergen, a New Zealand NASCAR driver, doesn't understand information given to him in feet.

Each driver has a 'spotter' who speaks to him over two-way radio advising him of the location of other cars in the race, sometimes in feet and sometimes in car lengths. Being a very metric New Zealander, van Gisbergen doesn't understand measurement in feet, and told the media afterwards: Keep talking in car lengths and how far off I got. No idea what a foot is.

Other overseas professional sportsmen sometimes have the same problem. I remember reading about a South African professional golfer struggling to learn what yard are for American competitions.

Hello, everyone,

I'm sorry, but I tried to add a new item to the Resources tab in the sidebar and managed to lose the entire list of resources.

I will restore the Resources list over the next few days. If you have any suggestions for useful on-line metric resources, please make a comment below.

Please include the name of the site, its web address (URL), and why you think it may be useful.

Thank you,

klystron,

Moderator

I know we live in a digital world where this hardly has a necessity anymore.

But any yardstick has ability to do 1/3 of a yard. 12" rulers have the ability to do 2/3'. And some other rulers (which have 12ths or 24ths scale) can do 5/12" for an example.

As far as i know, this is not an ability of which the metric system has.

I'm doing a lesson for non-native English speakers about how to pronounce metric dimensions.

Which of the following is the most common or natural way to say the following:

4.15 m

1. four metres fifteen
2. four metres fifteen centimetres
3. four point one five metres

Are there situations where one would be more appropriate than the others? Thanks!

2024-10-01

An opinion piece in the Register-Herald, of Preble County, Ohio, offers lukewarm support for the metric system:

Certain parts of our everyday life have easily transitioned to the metric system and we never gave it a second thought. Much of this came about in the early 1970s. Our soft drinks come in two-liter bottles. Medicine is measured and dispensed using metric units, except when it’s not, as in the case of using teaspoons, for example. Many track and field races are measured by the meter and cross-country races are measured in kilometers. The metric system probably makes sense in many more places.

The comment about medicine being dispensed in teaspoons is incorrect, as the pharmaceutical industry changed to metric dosing for over-the-counter medicines in 2018.

He ends with:

The old Peter, Paul, and Mary song “500 Miles” suddenly becomes “804.7 Kilometers.” Lastly, see how this rolls off your tongue: Never criticize a man until you’ve walked 1.6 kilometers in his shoes.

2024-10-2

National Metric Week runs from Sunday, 6 October to Saturday, 12 October, as this is the week that has the date 10/10.

The National Institute of Science and Technology has videos, posters and other metric education resources for teachers, and a week-long programme of activities for schools.

This screenshot is a result from Google's \"Search Labs AI Overview\" when asked \"Goliath Heron vs Green Heron.\" Since the Green Heron is an American bird (its range is North and South America) and the Goliath Heron is an African and Asian bird, I assume the facts were taken from different sources. The results, as you can see, are all in US Customary, but in feet and inches for the American bird and inches only for the African-Asian bird. Also, the weight is in pounds for one and ounces for the other. With this kind of information it is difficult to compare at a glance. I'm certain at least some if it was translated from metric sources by AI into US Customary units for my convenience. (eyeroll)

The source is Australian and metric:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-pesto-the-biggest-baby-penguin-this-australian-aquarium-has-ever-seen-180985149/

An article "explaining" why car engines (in the US) are rated in liters:
https://www.slashgear.com/1669993/engines-liter-measurement-numbers-explained/

Snippet:

Fast-forward to 1975, and Congress, along with President Gerald Ford, established the U.S. Metric Board to help the country gradually transition to the metric system. This full transition ultimately failed, but some elements of the private sector, particularly car manufacturers, saw an opportunity. While the U.S. wasn't interested in going metric, the system had definitively taken hold over most other first-world countries. This is why many car manufacturers with international dealings began offering their parts lists in metric terms for foreign buyers. The practice started to become commonplace following the signing of the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act in 1994. 

Car manufacturers in the US began metrication in the 1970's and have stated nearly all engine sizes in liters for around 50 years. I would note the original FPLA was passed in 1966, requiring Customary declaration of net contents, It was amended , effective 1994, to require dual declaration, and is completely inapplicable to vehicles. They don't appear to offer an easy way to contact the author or comment on articles.