The US Actually BEAT Europe to Metric - In One Specific Way

Over here in the US, we catch a lot of grief for having never switched to the metric system, but the fact of the matter is, we tried several times. So today let’s talk about the history of metric in the US, all the times that we tried to make the switch, and why each one failed.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
2:15 - Why Haven't We Switched?
5:10 - Early US-Metric History
9:50 - Two Competing Systems of Measurement
10:20 - Tangent Cam
11:13 - The Battle of the Standards
13:11 - Metric in the 20th Century
16:36 - Metrification Today
19:41 - Sponsor - Ground News
LINKS LINKS LINKS

[Nefville]

Here in Kentucky we've adopted the hillbilly measurement system. Things are measured in drops, pinches and dollops, distances are measured in stone's throws, over yonders, country miles, and "a ways", and finally time is measured in _a while_ and _a while longer._ Everyone should use these, its as easy as pie.

[TorbenRune]

Denmark switched to metrics i 1907. Up till then, we also had foot, but.... feets are different. A US feet is 0, 3048 meters, a old Danish feet is 0, 3139 meters. And we even had a separate unit for two feets, called an Alen = 0, 6277 meters - naturally, most people have two feets.

But it gets worse: A Greek foot was 0, 3082 m, a Roman foot was 0, 296 m, a Chinese foot was 0, 320 m (but varied over the different dynasties), a French foot was 0, 3248 m (also known as a Paris foot), and the English foot was 0, 3048 meters like the US one, but prior to that used the North-German foot of 0, 335 m, also considered the largest foot in the "system of feets".

The smallest foot ever was the German foot from the region of Hessen which was 0, 250 m.
No wonder that shoe sizes are so difficult to compare.

Brillant video btw.

[vivienclogger]

I'm from the UK: I was taught metric in the 1970s and we STILL have people coming into the hardware store where I work and ask for 1" screws. Fifty years and we STILL can't quite make the transition. So don't let anyone from the UK mock you - we use mile per hour for speed and car distances, but we fill up at the gas station (or petrol, if you will) in litres. It's mental.

[solomonsmith]

In the uk we haven’t actually completely transitioned to metric. Our road signs are still in miles and if you ask most people their height/weight they’ll answer in stone/feet

[PatClevenger]

Joe, I'm an American and I studied physics in college and grad school. Always used metric. Then I studied engineering and the hardest thing for me to do was to go back to using imperial units instead of metric. That was the most difficult thing for me.

[ydderynnad]

In 1990, a new highway was built in Delaware which had both metric and imperial units and people kept shooting at the metric signs. You know, with guns. There was an editorial in the local paper that called the metric system, "Communist." This was only 30-odd years ago so I wouldn't bet on it happening.

[Crojach]

Switching the industry (manufacturing, tools etc would definitely be costly) but here in Croatia we recently switched to the Euro and one thing that was added is to have all prices in Euros and then in smaller print in Croatian Kuna. We did this for 6 months before the transition and now we have it through 2023 after which we will only display Euros. I think that's quite a good way of slowly shifting the minds of people to think in a different unit. I know that you would have to shift between a bunch of them at the same time but just having it displayed in two units might help in the long run (I don't even know how much this would cost)

[KennethMills]

I was in my twenties when a big part of Europe, including my country, adopted the Euro as a currency. It took some adapting and in my experience mostly older people sometimes still have to convert to the old Belgian currency to get a feel of the value of something (mostly large sums). But it quickly felt natural to me and I never really noticed much “cultural inertia” in my surroundings. I also don’t recall many practical problems (except for getting familiar with the coins and many prices seemingly rising somewhat).

[mikerisner]

I was in elementary school in the late 70s, and I remember a push to go metric. At first, I thought it was cool. Quickly though, I found it confusing and became resistant. Now that I'm (much) older, I would support metric conversion today. It makes more sense to me now. And most people are a lot smarter than me, so it should be a breeze for our nation now 🙂

[dustinsellers]

I'm surprised he didn't talk about that the fact that the US is in fact metric (at least to my understanding). surprising i know. the US Weights & Measures Division bases everything off of Metric Units, then converts it. public scales that you use (think grocery stores, postage scales when you ship a package, the scales they use to measure your luggage at the airport etc) are all calibrated by this body, or a local body, and then converted to imperial units. when we buy products manufactured overseas its in metric units, we just convert to imperial so the general public never sees it and doesn't complain.

[brycewilson]

I used to work for Vestas a Danish wind turbine producer with factories in the US and everything was done in metric there and it was much easier to work with than imperial, we should switch ASAP

[Stepan]

I am an canadian immigrant. Came from metric country 12 years ago. 1) i saw 2-3 Canadians who was complete Imperial and they looked like having issues to recalculate to Metric for me 2) i worked in construction for some time and didn't experience any issues with converting to inches-feet 3) having 2 systems is actually fun game that you play every day
Very informative video, Joe! Thanks

[tangoteamleader]

I’d love for YouTubers (especially in the science, tech, education scene) to use metric by default and then overlay imperial units. Same way people learn foreign languages by seeing subtitles.

[Zod_JB]

Admittedly I almost never listen to your sponsor segments, but I listened to this one because it genuinely caught my interest. The news climate seems like every news outlet has an extreme biased with none of them even trying to find middle ground. It’s exhausting. I’m definitely gonna check out this weeks sponsor.

[neilscole]

I'm in Canada and we have a combination of metric and imperial. There are some factors for why that is, but one of them is the integration of the Canadian and American markets. So certain products aimed at both Canadian and American markets end up with imperial units, like all of our ovens. But again, it's a mix, because we measure long distances in metric, but short distances and the height of a person in imperial.

[RobertLiebold]

Been using imperial AND metric for nearly 45 years now and have tools in both, designed machinery in both since we buy robots from a Japanese company. In the late 1980's I designed dies for stampings in imperial units for parts dimensioned in metric. So, it's been here a long time, I just incorporated it into my daily life as an additional unit of measure.

[Vaaluin]

I'm an American that moved to Europe last year. It was confusing at first but it finally clicked for me when I went on an 8km walk. That sort of grounded the system in my head and it all made sense. Obviously the math itself is easy to learn in a few minutes but having that referential memory to think about it in a physical sense helped quite a bit. At this point, I don't care what the US does anymore. I'm staying here and metric works great.

[leftcoastfunk]

I think it's less about wanting to switch, and more about...we have SO MANY worse things we need to worry about

[Fernando-ekjp]

You can go bit by bit.
We use metric, but stuff like weight and volume have generally been measured in imperial.
Gas pumps used to sell in gallons, they eventually switched to liters.
Grocery stores sold meats by the pound, now it's by gram, but both are labeled, and a lot of stores have the conversion rate plastered on the walls.

[jasonericson]

I work for a distillery, and while packaging is in milliliters, excise taxes are based off of proof gallons, which are different from wine gallons (the regular gallon you know and love). It's a bit maddening.