On Mon, 2006-10-09 at 07:55 -0700, David Cornell wrote:
I'm American and I can't understand why we had to be so different and
use our own systems of measure instead of Metric.
Oh, it is weirder than most people imagine. But, since 1893 all US
weights and measures are defined in terms of the metric system. So we
can at least convert from one system to the other.
Honestly, I think just keeping everything convertible by multiples
of 10 would be FAR easier. I still need a chart to tell me how many
pints are in a gallon. Oh well, wishing and wondering don't change
anything.
I agree completely. President Carter tried very hard to convert the US
to metric. That was when we started getting metric sizes and weights on
things you buy at the store. He tried to get speed limits posted in KPH
and MPH, but that didn't last long. And, for a while the speedometers in
cars had scales in MPH and KPH, but that eventually went away.
We will only change when we are forced by economic necessity to change.
Bob Pendleton
