why is the US not Metric

[KL27x]

Going all the way back to the OP from Australia, I think the presumption is wrong. That everything in Australia is metric.

I've had conversation with Aussie, and per him, routers are usually in imperial, quarter inch or half inch. In China and some/most of EU, they use 6 and 12 mm. I've purchased metric collets for my routers so I can use metric end mills (cuz they're cheaper), so there's an example of adapting to metric TO SAVE MONEY vs spending money just be metric. In one case, the seller was in East Europe, I received the OEM collet from that region. In other case, I purchased from a domestic machine shop.

[CatalinaWOW]

The comments on recipes are intriguing.  In the US virtually all units are volume (cups, fluid ounces, teaspoons and tablespoons). The exceptions are usually for things marketed in a standard size, the 1lb can for example. My experience with European cookbooks, confirmed by the examples given above show a mixture of volume and mass units.  Do cooks resort to scales or balances for these?

As someone who first learned to cook in USA and then moved to Europe, it also seemed odd to me at first to go by weight. But having become a very good cook, I’ve come to appreciate accurate measuring for the things where it’s critical (read: baking, candy, etc). It makes absolutely no sense to measure compressible powders (like flour) and ingredients with significant density variation between manufacturers (like salt) by volume, since the measurement can be off by a HUGE amount. (For example, when a recipe says to add salt, it absolutely matters what kind of salt it is: Diamond Crystal kosher salt, for instance, is HALF as dense as Morton’s kosher salt or regular granulated salt. For Europeans: it’s like comparing the same volume of fleur de sel vs. table salt vs. coarse pretzel salt.) And some ingredients, like honey and shortening, are just a pain in the butt to measure by volume, even if they can be measured accurately that way.

Cooking is one area where I have more or less abandoned US customary measurements, because weighing is just  so damned convenient, and grams are great for doing it because a digital kitchen scale’s dynamic range is enough to measure both large and small amounts accurately. The fact that water weighs 1g per ml also means that you can just weigh the water too, without even having to change units. (Less measuring cups to clean!) When I make bulgur, for example, I put a glass bowl on the scale and tare it, put in 200g of bulgur, add water to 600g, and then add bouillon powder to 615g. (Black pepper and olive oil added by eye, then it goes in the microwave for 11 mins at 1000W and then another 5 mins at 400W.) Tablespoons and teaspoons are the only non-metric measures I use, since even European recipes use those regularly. However, since most of my favorite cookbooks and cooking channels are in US units, I remain fully comfortable using them.

I can see the benefits.  But am surprised that the dynamic range isn't a problem.  Sitting next to me is a food scale, obviously for worldwide use since it has the obligatory g/oz button.  Resolution is 1 gram, good enough for the small amounts like spices.  But this one limits at 2 kg, so if you are using glass cookware maybe only 1500-1800 g for food.  Fine when cooking for one or two, but pretty limiting when cooking for a large family or making a winter supply of sausage.  Oh well.  First world problem.

One the same general subject, what does the world use for evaluating food intake?  Calories are thoroughly entrenched here in the US.  Does the rest of the world use ergs or Joules?  I might just agree with rstofer on how long it will be before American women give up calories.

[bsfeechannel]

So I think we can pretty much answer the OP's question.

The US are not fully metric because their industry betted on the wrong horse. They didn't see the obvious advantages of a system of measures based on the latest technological and scientific achievements and decided to cling to tradition. While the other nations are now reaping the benefits of this move, the US will have to pay a high price to switch to modernity. That's why they are doing it peacemeal. The whole world is über patiently waiting for them to take the plunge but, meanwhile, can only shrug and go on with their lives.

My hunch is that the US will be metricated to a satisfactory extent in the next 50 years, or when California decides to change. What happens first.

[bsfeechannel]

Going all the way back to the OP from Australia, I think the presumption is wrong. That everything in Australia is metric.

I've had conversation with Aussie, and per him, routers are usually in imperial, quarter inch or half inch. In China and some/most of EU, they use 6 and 12 mm. I've purchased metric collets for my routers so I can use metric end mills (cuz they're cheaper), so there's an example of adapting to metric TO SAVE MONEY vs spending money just be metric. In one case, the seller was in East Europe, I received the OEM collet from that region. In other case, I purchased from a domestic machine shop.

My Chinese router came with both collets, metric and imperial. Router bits are more easily found in metric for the shaft and cutting diameter, but you can also find some of the most common dimensions in imperial.

[KL27x]

^I don't know where you are from, but I have yet to find any router bit in metric, here in the US. I'm sure they are available on alibaba or somesuch. On eBay/Amazon, all the router bits I have seen have imperial shank. It's only endmills and engraving bits, burrs, hardpoints... basically metal-working stuff, that I find flooded with cheap metric imports.

Probably every router bit I have was shipped from China and has an imperial shank.

[bsfeechannel]

One the same general subject, what does the world use for evaluating food intake?  Calories are thoroughly entrenched here in the US.  Does the rest of the world use ergs or Joules?  I might just agree with rstofer on how long it will be before American women give up calories.

Yes. The cheap-arse ketchup bottle says literally that for a 12-g serving (one table spoon) you will have 12 kcal = 51 kJ, 2.7 g of carbohydrates and 100 mg of sodium.

[mansaxel]

Do cooks resort to scales or balances for these?

Yes, that is weird to imagine, weighing all your ingredients to the gram, lol.

Nope. People have a good idea of what 100g butter or 500g flour means. Some of those quantities are the exact value, multiples or submultiples of what you find in the groceries. But if you need to weigh your food, that's what kitchen scales are for.

You need scales when baking. Or it won't turn out right. Flour is only accurate by weight, since it varies in volume with how it's been handled. I weigh my coffee too, first by necessity since I broke my measuring spoon, and then I continue due to the increased repeatability of the brew. We always get it right now that we're pretty close to 6 1/4 6,25g  per 1 1/2 1,5dl cup. Of course we're brewing in multiples, so usually 8 (50g) or 10 (~63g) cups is the dose.

[vk6zgo]

4' 11" and 1/16 is exactly 1.5 m. 3/8" is approximately 10 cm. Piece of cake: 1.7 m - wide minimum blind.

Want to try that again? 

You're trying to work out: 4' 11 ¹/₁₆" - (2 x ³/₈").  ³/₈" is approximately 1 cm, not 10 cm and the talk of clearance ought to make it clear that the blind is meant to be narrower than the window (recess) not (considerably) wider.

The exact answer is 4' 10 ⁵/₁₆". It's remarkably easy to do in your head as long as one knows 1" = ¹⁶/₁₆" and ³/₈" = ⁶/₁₆"; just re-cast it as:
 4' 11 ¹/₁₆" - (2 x ³/₈")
=> 4' 10 ¹⁷/₁₆" - (2 x ⁶/₁₆")
=> 4' 10 ¹⁷/₁₆" - ¹²/₁₆".

Junior school 'fractions' practice basically.

.

I am the one who needs to "Try again!"---- see edit below:-

I, personally like the look of blinds that are a bit wider than the windows, rather than a bit narrower.
Obviously both are common, so it is an eady enough mistake to make.
It is, however, a mistake in communication, & would have the same effect with metric.

Anyhow, looking at the original  figures

For the wider blind case:-
Window is 4'11and 1/16"
They want 3/8"either side.
3/8" is 6/16", so adding that to the original, you get 4'11" and 7/16" --

It's a little harder for the "blind narrower" case, in which you need to subtract 6/16",
giving you  4'10"and 11/16"
(because 4' 11" and 1/16" can be re-expressed as 4' 10" and 17/16")

All done in my head, & I haven't seriously worked with Imperial sizes since the late 1970s!

It's really the easiest problem you could get, as all the fractions just fall out---probably why old style tapes were all marked in halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, etc.

Edit:- Well I blew that--- rabbiting on about how easy it was, when I made the elementary mistake of not doubling tne 3/8"  p

[rstofer]

So I think we can pretty much answer the OP's question.

The US are not fully metric because their industry betted on the wrong horse. They didn't see the obvious advantages of a system of measures based on the latest technological and scientific achievements and decided to cling to tradition.

What advantage does metric offer to the average person walking down the street?  Not a darn thing!  Some of our industry has converted, some more might convert, some never will.  So what?

Second, despite our backward system, we have walked on the Moon and nobody else has and we did it 50 years ago.  Some of the work was calc'd in metric, most of it was built in customary units.  Call back when you leave footprints!  In the meantime (probably another 100 years or so), keep working on the project, you'll get there someday, but we'll be on Mars before you get to the Moon!

While the other nations are now reaping the benefits of this move, the US will have to pay a high price to switch to modernity. That's why they are doing it peacemeal. The whole world is über patiently waiting for them to take the plunge but, meanwhile, can only shrug and go on with their lives.

Why do you care what we do?  Why is this all so terribly important to you?  We don't care what you're doing, we certainly don't criticize your use of the metric system but we're not staging protests demanding change.  We simply don't care!  If we need metric, we use it.  If we don't, well, we don't.  It isn't important in our everyday lives.

And do be aware that, as backward as we are, we're still the largest economy in the world.

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?

My hunch is that the US will be metricated to a satisfactory extent in the next 50 years, or when California decides to change. What happens first.

Satisfactory to whom?  It is already satisfactory to us and we're the only people that matter.  We haven't converted at the population level in the last 50 years, why do you assume we will to it to your satisfaction in the next 50 years?  Do you imagine that we care what the world thinks?  Your only option is to redefine your idea of "satisfactory" and imagine that what you see today meets your new standard because what you see is all you'll ever see.  Industry may change, science and medicine have changed or always were metric but the person walking down the street isn't going to change - ever!  And certainly not just to meet your "satisfaction".

I know, every time I bring up the Moon thing people frame it as American Exceptionalism.  Well, yes, it's true.  But if it wasn't for AE, the French people would be speaking German and the standards would be in Berlin.  The Germans always did have the superior scientists.

[jmelson]

So I think we can pretty much answer the OP's question.

The US are not fully metric because their industry betted on the wrong horse.

Well, the US auto industry has been fully metric since about 1980, except that the wheel lug nuts and oil pan drain plug were kept imperial for a number of years.  Aircraft have been metric since at least that far back.
Anything you buy in the grocery store has metric weights, and many of them are sold by rational metric weights or volumes, ie 500 g (1.1 Lbs) or something like that.  Our hardware stores now have as much metric nuts and bolts as the old imperial sizes.  Lots of other things bought in stores are made to metric sizes.

So, really, we are a LOT more metric that many people realize.

Jon

[Monkeh]

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?

Your delusional ego, yes.

The units you use have nothing to do with the resources you have the luck to have as a country.

[rstofer]

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?

Your delusional ego, yes.

The units you use have nothing to do with the resources you have the luck to have as a country.

The only important resources are people and capitalism.  We can buy everything else.
A relatively business-friendly government helps.

[CatalinaWOW]

Here is an example to show the pace at which metric will take over in the US.  A similar process may have occurred in other parts of the world.

Back in the 1800s all bolts and nuts in the US were square headed.  Sometime in the early 1900s someone introduced hex nuts and heads.  They took slightly less material so were cheaper to produce and could fit into tighter spaces, and gave six options for the wrench which was an advantage in close quarters.  They gradually took over the industry.  By the time I was a young lad in the 1950s you could hardly find a square headed bolt, and square nuts were limited to small hardware sizes.  But there was a major holdout.  What we call lag screws in the US, large coarse threaded bolts with a tapering tip intended to screw into timbers and logs still had square heads.  Currently square headed nuts are hard to find in any size, and lag screws have switched to hex heads.

So roughly a 75 to 80 year transition time when not forced by economic necessity.  As has been mentioned over and over, the industries where it is a necessity have already changed here.  Where the major drive is to make someone on the other side of the world happy we will change no faster than they would simply to please us.

[rstofer]

Our hardware stores now have as much metric nuts and bolts as the old imperial sizes.  Lots of other things bought in stores are made to metric sizes.
Jon

Lowe's and Home Depot do have a wide selection of metric nuts and bolts but in nowhere near the selection and quantity as Imperial.  I don't think I have ever seen a metric carriage bolt in a hardware store.  Same with heavily galvanized hex head bolts and nuts.  Obviously, they do have zinc plated and some stainless steel nuts and bolts.

I'm not sure what a metric lag screw would look like.  Do they really think the homeowner wants to buy a 14mm wrench just to tighten a lag screw?

Yes, there are examples where products are marked in metric but it isn't necessarily the number that the average person looks at.  As I said above, Coca Cola, in cans, is marked as 12 FL OZ.  It has a metric equivalent of 355 mL in parenthesis.

I'm not aware of any food products that are marked solely in metric.  OTOH, I don't spend a lot of time doing grocery shopping.  There could be something out there because we import a LOT of food from South America.

[Monkeh]

I'm not sure what a metric lag screw would look like.  Do they really think the homeowner wants to buy a 14mm wrench just to tighten a lag screw?

Just... like... an imperial.. one..

And no, they don't - 13mm is the usual standard.

[rstofer]

I'm not sure what a metric lag screw would look like.  Do they really think the homeowner wants to buy a 14mm wrench just to tighten a lag screw?

Just... like... an imperial.. one..

And no, they don't - 13mm is the usual standard.

Yes. people need 10, 12, 13 and 14 as a minimum set.  8 comes in handy from time to time but I don't often use the larger sizes.

[vk6zgo]

I'm not sure what a metric lag screw would look like.  Do they really think the homeowner wants to buy a 14mm wrench just to tighten a lag screw?

Just... like... an imperial.. one..

And no, they don't - 13mm is the usual standard.

Yes. people need 10, 12, 13 and 14 as a minimum set.  8 comes in handy from time to time but I don't often use the larger sizes.

You can almost always get away with a 1/2" for 13mm & vice versa, as you can with 9/16" & 14mm.
A couple of the big sizes are close, too, but the small sizes don't translate well.

In Oz, in the past, Whitworth threaded bolts were widely used. (still a lot around).
The threads are mostly the same as UNC, but the spanners (wrenches) are sized in (nominal) thread diameter, rather than "across the flats" as UNF are (at least in Oz, & I think the UK).

They also go "a bit funny" in the smaller sizes, & don't seem consistent.
Interestingly, we used 1/8" Whitworth for most Electronics stuff, whereas the UK used a mixture of  Whitworth & BA.

There doesn't seem to be any equivalent of the "customary" US screw sizes used so widely in Electronics from North America, so we hoarded any spare ones we found, like a miser!

The (mostly) 3mm Metric screws in older German equipment used fine threads, older Japanese stuff used coarse Metric.
The ones you buy over the counter these days seem finer than the older Japanese ones, but coarser than the old German ones.

[bsfeechannel]

Second, despite our backward system, we have walked on the Moon and nobody else has and we did it 50 years ago.  Some of the work was calc'd in metric, most of it was built in customary units.

And the next time, it will be fully in metric. I'm pretty sure. Can't wait. 

[vk6zgo]

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?

Your delusional ego, yes.

The units you use have nothing to do with the resources you have the luck to have as a country.

The only important resources are people and capitalism.  We can buy everything else.
A relatively business-friendly government helps.

The private sector didn't take you to the Moon--- the taxpayers paid for that.
Maybe next time, Elon will change that!

[Altair8800]

Shhhhh...

Do not let the Americans know that all the units they use in Electricity/Electronics are ALL IN METRIC (Watts, Joules, Volts, Amperes, etc.).  They might freak out...   

Actually when I studied engineering I used to immediately convert all US Customary/Imperial units to MKS Metric units.  Once you did that you no longer had to worry about converting units anymore (Because if you have all your units initially in MKS you are guaranteed to have a MKS result).  So if you have all your units start in MKS (Metre, Kilogram, Second and also Ampere, Kelvin, Mole, Candela) you know your end units will also be standard MKS type units (like Joule, Watt, Pascal (pressure), Newton(force), etc., etc.). 

Then after I did my calculations in Metric I would then convert the final result to US Customary/Imperial units.  It was actually easier and quicker and less chance for error for me to do it this way.

I actually find the Metric system 10x easier (pun intended).   

[soldar]

I, personally like the look of blinds that are a bit wider than the windows, rather than a bit narrower.

Not possible when the blinds are between the jambs and not outside the plane of the wall.

So in metric the problem does not use fractions and is reduced to what is 1500 minus 2 x 8 mm (or whatever the numbers are, I haven't checked).

I dunno but to me anyone who denies that is easier, faster and less prone to mistakes is delusional.

[soldar]

What advantage does metric offer to the average person walking down the street? 

Are they going to the hardware store to buy blinds? Because I would say getting the correct size is definitely an advantage over getting the wrong size.

Second, despite our backward system, we have walked on the Moon and nobody else has and we did it 50 years ago.  Some of the work was calc'd in metric, most of it was built in customary units.  Call back when you leave footprints!  In the meantime (probably another 100 years or so), keep working on the project, you'll get there someday, but we'll be on Mars before you get to the Moon!

Oh, come on! This is a shitty argument and you know it. Using two sets of units has a cost in time, money, errors, etc. Saying "were so rich we can afford to waste money" is not an argument, it's dick waving.

Why do you care what we do?  Why is this all so terribly important to you?  We don't care what you're doing, we certainly don't criticize your use of the metric system but we're not staging protests demanding change.  We simply don't care!  If we need metric, we use it.  If we don't, well, we don't.  It isn't important in our everyday lives.

I have missed any protests around the world demanding America change to metric. Is that what the HK protests are about?

And do be aware that, as backward as we are, we're still the largest economy in the world.

Oh, more dick waving! OK, I'm game! America is still the largest economy depending on how you measure. China is larger by Parity Purchasing Power and the EU is larger outright. So yeah, if you choose the right way to measure the USA is still #1 (and losing ground rapidly). So what? What does that prove with regard to the benefits of one set of measuring units or another? Nothing, that's what.

Saying "we are so rich we can waste resources" is not rational, it's egotism. And nobody is demanding America do anything in this respect. In fact, America's competitors are probably quite happy to see America is losing ground in the world and if you asked them they would be the first ones to opine America should stay with American customary units because they benefit from that.

Do we really want to go back to 1969? (Well, I would but that's another issue and totally unrelated to the metric system.) Do we want to go back to 1969 model cars? TVs?

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?

I only see irrational dick waving.

I know, every time I bring up the Moon thing people frame it as American Exceptionalism.  Well, yes, it's true.  But if it wasn't for AE, the French people would be speaking German and the standards would be in Berlin.  The Germans always did have the superior scientists.

Not only dick waving but a very limp dick that saw better days ... maybe in 1969. Sad!

[rstofer]

Not only dick waving but a very limp dick that saw better days ... maybe in 1969. Sad!

You're right, it is.  And that's because EVERY ONE of these threads, and they happen a couple of times a year, devolves into US bashing.  I get a little tired of people from 3rd tier countries attacking the US.  We have done so much for so many in our mere 243 years of existence you would think we would get a little respect.  But no, people from countries thousands of years older that have accomplished exactly nothing in their entire history seem to find great glee in bashing our success because we CHOOSE not to use metric.  It's a choice and we made it!

Do outsiders, in even their most drug induced hallucinations, believe that the US cares what other countries think?

[Macbeth]

Lockheed Martin "choosing" not to use metric, while NASA JPL did worked out well for the Mars Climate Orbiter didn't it? 

[Monkeh]

Do outsiders, in even their most drug induced hallucinations, believe that the US cares what other countries think?

You seem to care a great deal.

The US is built upon the 'nothing' other countries have accomplished. And now you're on course to undo all of it.