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The Digg charts have been going haywire over this map of countries that don’t use the Metric System. While grams and kilometers aren’t exactly embraced here, the US has definitely been flirting with the measurement scheme for a very long time (Jefferson was an advocate!). Here’s a look at 6 quirky things I just learned about the Metric System.
1. There Used to Be a Metric Calendar (and Metric Clocks!)
Back when the whole Metric rage was taking place, the French decided to play with time as well. The Metric Calendar (also called the French Republican Calendar) divided the year into 12 months. While the 12 doesn’t exactly fit into the scheme, each of those months was divided into three 10 day weeks. Each day was broken down into 10 decimal hours, and each hour was 100 decimal minutes each. While metric clocks and calendars were designed to push the new system, the idea never really took off, and mandatory use of the system was suspended just three years into its launch in 1795.
2. There’s a Magazine Devoted to It: Metric Today
Actually, it’s more of a bi-monthly newsletter. Published by the USMA (U.S. Metric Association), a non-profit organization devoted to promoting the metrication of society, Metric Today covers all the things you need to know about getting metric in America. The current issue covers topics like:
- How did John Deere metricate?
- How will hydrogen be measured when fueling cars?
- What metric-related holidays occur in October?
Of course, the newsletter is just a small part of their doings. They also sell give out awards, work with the government to push the metric agenda, and sell flashcards and other metric-centric stuff. This set of posters is my absolute favorite. Sadly, while the USMA is incredibly savvy about their measuring system (each poster is billed at 55 cm high by 32 cm wide), they do not accept orders via the net. Instead, you have to print out a form, and mail it in with your check.
3. There are a Handful of Resisters
As the map below shows, three countries make up the Axis of Medieval. The U.S. is one, but which other nations are willing to join us in brandishing their yard sticks and uniting against the world’s most popular measurement system? It turns out that our only allies in this fight are Liberia and Myanmar. Map via Digg.
4. But America Likes it for her Money
It’s funny that while we’ve shunned the metric system in all other ways, it made total sense to us in terms of our cash. Through the Mint Act of 1792, the U.S. became the first country to create a decimal based currency. Amazingly, the idea of setting 100 pennies to the dollar was novel for the time, especially since the dominant currency back then was the British pound/shilling/pence scheme which, at the time, set 12 pence to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound.
5. Thomas Jefferson, Lord Kelvin and Alexander Graham Bell were all Passionate Supporters
In their own words:
Lord Kelvin: “I look upon our English system as a wickedly brain destroying piece of bondage under which we suffer. The reason why we continue to use it is the imaginary difficulty of making a change, and nothing else; but I do not think in America that any such difficulty should stand in the way of adopting so splendidly useful a reform.”
Alexander Graham Bell: “After the metric system has been adopted by the U.S. and our people have become accustomed to its use we would no more dream of going back to the present system of weights and measures than we would think of carrying on the processes of arithmetic through the medium of the old Roman letters in place of the Arabic numerals we now employ.”
Thomas Jefferson was also an early and vocal advocate. You can read his proposal from 1790 here.
6. It’s Illegal to Discriminate Against It
Or at least it was. According to the Metric Act of 1866, the USMA reports that “This law made it unlawful to refuse to trade or deal in metric quantities.” Please bring that up the next time you want to purchase a 2×4 (or rather, a 5.08×10.16) at Lowes.
Axis of Medieval? Brilliant.
posted by Rachel on 8-13-2008 at 1:06 pm
The map you posted is incorrect. Britain also uses mainly imperial measurement. Do a Google search for “Britain” and “metric”, and you’ll find plenty about their fight to retain the use of imperial measurements.
Imperial measurements still have 2 strong advatages: 1) They’re easier to visualize for rough estimates - picturing your thumb for an approximate inch, or your foot for an approximate foot is easier than picturing 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum for a meter. 2) Units of 10 are great as long as you’re only halves and fifths. However, once you get into 3rds, 6ths, and 8ths, imperial becomes easier to use.
posted by gmsc on 8-13-2008 at 1:08 pm
I saw someone posting on that in the digg forum as well. The UK uses a mishmash of metric and imperial system. Officially, at least according to the USMA, Britain has a government mandate to convert to the metric system, though it’s lacking a solid timeline, while the 3 countries above do not have an official policy to switch over.
posted by Mangesh on 8-13-2008 at 1:16 pm
Imperial system forever! If the French can’t cope with fractions or multiplication by twelve, they should stay in France!
posted by Zach on 8-13-2008 at 1:34 pm
I won one of those USMA awards for a science project in high school. Fairly blew me away, actually, because all I was doing was measuring the amount of water I gave my bean sprouts in mL instead of …what? how else would I have measured it? Tablespoons? Ounces? Hardly.
posted by Kristen on 8-13-2008 at 1:45 pm
“1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum for a meter”
Well, considering I wasn’t used to measuring feet as 503281.625 wavelengths of the orange-red emmision line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum, I don’t think it makes much of a difference. But that is just me.
And the second reason is ridiculous. Of course you won’t use a third of a meter much. You don’t use one tenth of a foot, two tenths of a foot, three tenths of a foot, four tenths of a foot, etc. much either. how about twentieths of a foot?
Your statement makes it sound as if an eighth of a foot does not correspond to a metric value. I don’t know about you, but when somebody is talking about an eight of a foot, they usually need/have a ruler. And, if you could have a ruler, you could have a meter stick
To rephrase your ‘2 advatages’;
1) If the only two things you are capable of using for measurements are your thumb and wavelengths, then imperial is for you.
2)Metric values and imperial values are, in fact, different values
We do everything in base ten except measurement. despite the belief of gmsc, the metric system is not base 1,650,763.73. IT is, in fact, easier.
posted by will on 8-13-2008 at 1:52 pm
It’s been said already, but Axis of Medieval is awesome.
posted by Roger on 8-13-2008 at 2:01 pm
Gmsc, I thought the meter was developed based off of the Earth’s circumference, divided by ten repeatedly. I’m not sure if that is right, but it seems more likely that somebody somehow got an estimate for the earth’s circumference than lined up over a million wavelengths and measured them (is that possible?)
I hope to God that your points were jokes, because both are irelevant to anything.
As far as major advantages go, yours are laughable.
And as for rough estimates, you only see inches because you learned inches.
and anything that uses the number 5280 is annoying in my book.
And Zach, can you easily say, without a calculator, how many inches are in a mile? because with centimeters in a kilometer, the only possibly error is to lose track of zeros
posted by Luis on 8-13-2008 at 2:18 pm
@ Will,
While I agree with you in concept, I should note I have done a fair share of land surveying in the past and we used rulers (as well as other measurement devices) which break down the foot measurement into units of 10. These units were no longer called “inches,” but rather “tenths.”
Actually, if you think about it, its kind of interesting to see how civil engineers essentially “metrified” the imperial system to meet their needs. I’m not an engineer, so if there are any (civil) engineers out there who could comment further, the input would be appreciated.
posted by Florida on 8-13-2008 at 2:59 pm
Q: What happens when we run out of unit with imperial?
A: We start using decimal places.
posted by Codius on 8-13-2008 at 3:04 pm
wouldn’t that board be 5.08 x 10.16 (not 10.06) or is the metric system that screwy? ;-)
posted by Flip on 8-13-2008 at 3:29 pm
Ha! Oops… I’ve fixed that now. Thanks Flip.
posted by Mangesh on 8-13-2008 at 3:34 pm
First, the ‘metric system’ usually goes by the name SI these days - The French initials for The International System of Units.
The Alexander Graham Bell quote is beautiful. The only legitimate reason for keeping the Imperial measurement system is ignorance. gmsc has been well countered by other posters. Florida, the ‘metrified’ version is nothing more that a jury rigged attempt to make the imperial system work better.
Anyone who has taken a physics class will run screaming from the Imperial measurements. Besides the obvious scaling advantages, the Imperial system was designed with only one unit, lbs, that represent both mass and force. This causes huge problems and you must delineate lbs-mass and lbs-force to get proper results. Plus, you must constantly factor out gravity; which is not a nice round number. SI has units of mass (grams) and force (Newtons) completely separated, making life much easier.
One need only to work out the same classic physics problems in Imperial and again in SI to become a convert.
posted by n2y2 on 8-13-2008 at 4:18 pm
And if you’ve ever worked out a problem in imperial units and used 9.8 lbf/s^2 for gravity you will never work in imperial again.
posted by Manda on 8-13-2008 at 5:25 pm
Not just Britain. Canada also uses a mishmash of measurements.
We’re not at all self concious about saying “I’m six feet tall” and “It’s 25 degrees outside” (meaning Celsius) in the same sentence.
We know kilometers, kilograms and litres but also pounds, feet, inches and acres.
In trying to teach us both systems we have a mastery of neither
posted by Wayne on 8-13-2008 at 5:36 pm
So what were the additional days of the metric week called? I assume (?) they used SMTWTFS, but what about the rest?
posted by Maggie on 8-13-2008 at 6:38 pm
your article was published @
www.metrication.us
Thank you for your support.
We want to GO Metric NOW.
WE want to remove the old measuring system and
WE WILL DO IT.
Total METRIC SYSTEM - slowly getting there, inch by inch
posted by Mici on 8-13-2008 at 6:42 pm
Excellent post - as a New Zealander who lived in the US for a year, I recall the exact moment my frustration with the imperial system turned into utter disdain - Attempting to recreate one of Martha Stewart’s crafts. All was going well until I had to measure 1/36th of an inch. What the…?!
Needless to say, the Christmas tree decoration never did work out.
posted by dangermouse on 8-13-2008 at 8:18 pm
or was that 1/32? whatever. It sucks.
posted by dangermouse on 8-13-2008 at 8:19 pm
Dear Mental Floss,
Not only, (as you mentioned)is the metric system protected from invalidation in the U.S. (Metric Act of 1866), it has also been designated by Congress as the “preferred system of meeasurement for trade and commerce” in our country (1988 amendment to the Metric Conversion Act of 1975).
Thank you for your kind words about our newsletter, “Metric Today,” which has been published by USMA for more than 40 years. USMA was founded in 1916, and we are proud to have counted none other than the renowned educator, Maria Montessori, among the attendees at our first meeting that year in New York City.
So many standards are enacted in American society, except for the long-overdue measurement standard. The Congress, which, under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, has the power to set the standard, has never done so officially. USMA continues to work for the day when the International System of measurement becomes America’s measurement standard, thus eliminating a hidden barrier to international trade and global commercial and scientific solidarity between the U.S. and other countries.
posted by Paul Trusten, R.Ph., Public Relations Director, USMA on 8-13-2008 at 11:14 pm
Certainly take a look at Britain… probably the only country to be “officially” metric where it’s actually illegal to use metric in some circumstances!
Most Brits couldn’t care less which system they measured in but “as long as it’s not forced on us by the EU” is the mantra here. We started converting in the late 1960’s but didn’t join the EEC (what the EU was known as then) until the mid 1970’s but people don’t realise that because they believe what the tabloids tell them! If the government of the day had finished the job as they did with decimalisation nobody would be complaining now!
posted by ALex Bailey on 8-14-2008 at 4:23 am
A 2×4 is not even 2 inches by 4 inches people so how confusing is that?!
Go METRIC!!!! Remember it is a “METRE” not a “METER”!
posted by RECON on 8-14-2008 at 8:13 am
RECON, I am all for metric (as seen in my above post) but if I see a ‘u’ in color and favorite, an ’s’ in organization or any other ‘zation’, or re instead of er, I will find a use in the obsolete rulers by stuffing them down throats. Are we clear?
that extra ‘u’ adds up, and the ink industry would profit wildly, although slowly depleting our ink supply (just look at gas companies for reference). the metric system is practical. waste is not. This is not a cultural diffusion issue (although the pro-imperial people have no excuse other than comparing us and the French, as far as Zach is concerned). This is an issue of progress.
Granted, I don’t think we could ever fully integrate the metric system. We would still have footlongs, fruit by the foot, the longest yard, swimming pools and movie/television screens be in imperial. They already are. That is the only logical, indisputable reason to stay with imperial.
Now if you excuse me, I’m going back to sleep.
posted by Will on 8-14-2008 at 11:39 am
Wotthe[FITB]. If the Brits could switch over to decimal currency and the rest of Europe could switch to Euros without crashing their economies, all us ornery Amurricans can go over to metric. If nothing else, we’ll be able to drive 100* legally. :-)
*(100 kph = 62 mph)
posted by anomalous4 on 8-14-2008 at 5:12 pm
The only reason that we Canadians use a mishmash of imperial and metric is because we are too nice to tell our largest trading partner to get with the program. :-)
posted by Canadian Princess on 8-14-2008 at 6:11 pm
A 2×4 is not exactly the best example, because they’re actually 1.5″ by 3.5″ (approximately).
posted by Chad Cloman on 8-14-2008 at 9:44 pm