American reacts to 'Is The Metric System Actually Better?'

Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to Is The Metric System Actually Better?

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[DenUitvreter]

A litre of water, 1000 ml, wil fill a 10x10x10 cm cube and weigh 1 kilo. It will freeze at 0 degrees and boil at 100 degrees. The energy needed to heat that litre of water 1 degree is 1 kilocalorie. It's an elegant system. Of course it's superior but the problem is with the switch.

[DarthHLT]

Metric system seems pretty common in US schools, ... I mean 9mm are very, very popular, I believe.

[itsmebatman]

For a country that rebelled against a monarch it is weird they want to keep measuring stuff in that monarch's feet.

[bartermens]

My wife left me because, she said, I was too European. I saw it coming from 1, 6 kilometers away.

[FionaEm]

Australia converted to metric in 1972. It's a much simpler system than imperial - everything is in 10s, 100s and 1000s.

[richardgoddard]

As an ex engineer I can use both but Metric is just much easier. It just makes sense.

[sorbetcitron]

“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie1 of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself, ’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.” Wild Thing by Josh Bazell.

[samhartford]

That man banging his head against the wall is me, as a Continental European, when I understood that my British colleagues could not divide by 10.

[lorenv]

We in South Africa went metric in 1970. It was more exciting to have the speed limit at 120 than 70😂

[mina_en_suiza]

A couple of days ago, I saw a video where a number of acres was mentioned. I had no idea, how much of area this was, so I looked it up:
1 acre = 1 chain X 1 furlong.
I kept looking: 1 chain = 22 yards, 1 furlong = 10 chains = 220 yards = 660 feet.
So 1 acre = 4, 848 square yards = 43, 560 square feet which is roughly 4, 047m² and 640 acres = 1 square mile.

The corresponding for agricultural space in metric would be the hectare. 1ha = 100m X 100m = 10, 000m². 100ha = 1km²

Ask me again, which system is better.

[ryanwilson_canada]

As a Canadian growing up under the metric system. But learning carpentry, from people that use imperial, i use a mixture of both. Like for example, i am 193cm tall, or 1.93m, or in imperial I am 6'4" for an easy conversion 1" is 2.54cm, 1kg is 2.2lb (rounded) things like that. Ive recently switched back over to 100% metric. It's just easier for me.

[pn]

As a French, I’m proud one of our contribution to the world was the metric system. One of the few good things to come out of the Revolution

[wsmccallum]

I grew up in a country that converted to metrics when I was in primary school. To this day, I am SO glad I did not have to do high school physics and maths using the Imperial system.

[freudsigmund]

there are two kinds of countries... Those that use the metric system and those who lost a war to Vietnamese farmers

[cLorraine]

I attended a teacher’s college in 1975 in Australia. The country had just converted to the metric system . Our currency changed back in 1966. We were being taught the metric system at the same time as learning how to teach it to school children, because we hadn’t learned it ourselves in school

[lesfreresdelaquote]

What is quite funny is that many English words for measurements are actually... French. For instance, the British system is called: _avoirdupois_, which literally means _good of weight_ (des avoirs de poids, en français moderne). A _pint_ is French, even though in modern French (pinte) it now means 1/2 litter. The same for _ounce_, which is also French (once), _barrel_ which evolved from the French word _baril_ . We can add _gallon_ to the list as well and _cup_ of course. So when Americans complain that the metric system is _French_, well their system is actually based on old French as well... Ironic no? YOU CANNOT ESCAPE US...

[veronikam]

As a European I always wondered how you measure something precisely in the imperial system....I mean, in metric you have millimeters, but an inch is 2.54 cm. So a millimeter is like what....0.03 inches??? How do you use a measuring tape with the imperial system on it when you want to measure millimeters? And what about rulers at school in geometry? It must be crazy....

[GrahamMayer]

I didn't realise Americans understood sarcasm. You have exceeded my expectations.

[shadowxthevampiressofficial]

I recently switched to the 24 hour clock so now I'm fully metric. I have never been outside the US but I have friends in Canada. Metric may not be helpful when I talk to people in person but I do a lot of tech stuff so it's helpful for what I do. Game dev software measures distance in metres & so does Subnautica. It would be a pain in the ass doing tech stuff with imperial units.

[maxbarko]

The same situation is with traffic signs. The USA has mostly signs with words whereas most of the world uses standardized signs also with specific shapes.