40 thoughts on “Metric system adoption map”

  1. The title on the map is a little inaccurate. Pretty much the whole world has embraced elements of the metric system, but NO country has adopted it as a single system. In England we have a mixed bag of imperial and metric: construction industry still works with imperial, but is slowly shifting to metric; shops display both units, but most customers now “think” in metric (except we still insist on using pints for milk); we order pints of beer in the pub – that will never change; our personal data, like height and weight, are mainly imperial (feet and inches, stone and pounds), but the younger generation prefer metric; all road signs display distances in miles and speed limits in miles per hour.

    I always find it amusing when my continental neighbours grumble about our reluctance to fully embrace the metric system. I often ask them to tell me the time. Then I ask them why they haven’t fully embraced a metric system yet. Could you imagine a metric time system?

    • I hope I did the mental math right but if I started thinking in millidays then my work day would be 300 mday (after all you want a nice round sounding number). Then that would mean I would work 1.5 days out of every 7 days. Almost magically that works-out to 36 hours in a week, or 7 hours and 12 minutes. Say hello to skyrocketing employment!

      Now seriously, the unit of time that sort of makes sense is second, it is just sort of inconvenient that a day happens to have 86400 of them instead of a nice round number. Then there are 12 months, and those are different days long, not to mention that sometimes a year and February, not only being incredibly difficult to spell, is also variable in length, yuck!

      But in my day job I work in ms, us, and ns so as long as you are lucky to only have to work with short periods of time (in my case 10-15Hz) seconds are great!

      Also Euler, that’s a great nickame.

  2. God bless America. Maybe you should put a dinosaur on your flag?

    I know thosse base ten systems are incredibly confusing and make math difficult. Change is very scary. You should avoid upgrades and improvements at all costs! Hide head in bucket, the walruses were done with it anyway.

  3. Because we’re American so why should we let the rest of the world pressure us to make changes. After all if a system based on the side of an English King’s foot was good enough for our forefathers, it’s good enough for us. Ignorance of history seems to be a real issue with our basic education system. Dogma based on politics is taught over fact.

  4. you americans think you rule the world…
    your just a bunch of fat, uneducated, full of shit ,son’s of bitches…
    like the roman empire had fallen ,your going to do the same..
    you wount last for long!

    • Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way back to that Euroweeny rock that you live under.

  5. Paul I dont care what the rest of the world thinks,dont worry they will still love our money we send them

  6. Sorry Euler, MOST countries have adopted it as a single system. And although Antarctica is continent, not a single country, it also uses metric measurements, it is the only way the co-operating countries, including the USA and GB, can work together safely

  7. It would be more accurate to say the US uses both “our” English and the metric system. Not that long ago we also had a bunch of British Whitworth system sizes in vehicle parts, also.

  8. Yes, because you’re billions and billions in debt is you sending *other countries* money, not them loaning *you* money.

    Your view of the world is very unique, Infidel.

  9. I don’t think it’s a problem that the US doesn’t use metric. I mean almost every student who makes it to a university knows the metric system pretty thoroughly from taking either chemistry or physics. (and just ask any student to do a physics problem in something besides metric and see what happens)

  10. dose that mean i cant buy a liter of pop any more. are drinks and drugs are all metric what more do they want from us.

  11. @ Shadowydreamer, this world is quite unique, I guess that is why it goes around. You can’t get out alive so helping others is the main reason it is still here. I try to make the best of it. I guess my next question is….. Who is going to get us out of the mess we are in?

    @ ALN, buy your pop in 2 litre bottles and take your normal dosage of drugs. ALN, I drove on Big Lake in November, I love Alaska.

  12. Jonco – I don’t know where the line is but I think “Dracool” has gone over it…

  13. Spud- Maybe math and nonconformism has them a-scared. Isn’t that why we left in the first place?

  14. Remember that international Mars mission disaster? The Americans fooked up cuz they used the wrong measurement system.

    Really, the way to get Americans (men anyway) to go metric is to let them say, “I got a 12 cm down there”. I’ll let you do the math.

  15. …..i’m keeping out of politics. But I have to say I love the metric system because it’s all based on the metre.

  16. Sorry Miss Silver, only distance is based on the metre. The peter metre is based on Volume, the litre. Time is based on the egg timre.

    Nice spell check here! Guess for ‘mericuns only.

  17. So what’s the fuss with these comments? So you use another system, that doens’t mean you Seppos are any worse or better than anyone. If living overseas has taught me anything, it’s that there are the same ammount of morons and great people from any country.

    And what does your measuring system have to do with that?

    PS Ana, we drive on the left cos we’re amazin’ haha

    • I just thought it was interesting how few countries don’t use the metric system. I didn’t expect the firestorm of discussion, but I should have learned by now to expect the unexpected.

  18. The centimetre then? 1000 mls is 1000cc, which is 10x10x10…

    But you don’t hear a guy bragging about how long his dangelang is in cm, do you? Lol. “it’s 10 centimetres.” False advertisement!

    I use both units of measurment, really.

  19. As an American living in Asia, I still find the whole metric/imperial systems confusing… The most painful being Celsius and Fahrenheit, as I have to do a conversion every time so I can understand 🙁

  20. I remember being a kid in the 70s here in America and there was a huge push in the schools – filmstrips and posters “Here comes the metric system!” I honestly dont remember but I think it just quietly went away.

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