As far as manufacturing anything metric is sweet. It does take some time to wrap your head around though. I have noticed that in mechanical work I can easily look at a metric bolt and know what size socket I need for it. 3/4" or 11/16" not so much. On the other hand, there are two types of countries in the world. Those that use the metric system and those that put a man on the moon. Aahhh-murhica!
I too am a civil engineer and surveyor and most of my life's work has been done in feet/tenths/hundredths. I still use engineer's tapes all the time and it's hilarious giving them to people who have never seen one before. My boss, years ago, used to turn down State jobs because they insisted that the work be done in Metric. I had to laugh because with modern digital equipment it's as simple as changing a setting in the software. Bearings are bearings no matter where you go (but don't get me started on gradians, radians and gons). I have no problem using metric measurements but the difficulty for most people lies with the functional understanding of the conversion. Most people instinctively "get" what a pound or a foot or a quart is supposed to be, but tell them the roast beef is $16.75/kilo and they're gonna run. I remember as a teenager the first time I saw gas prices in Canada and thought it was ridiculously cheap - until I found out it was per liter, and then I spent the next half-hour trying to do the math in my head and realizing Canadians paid almost twice as much for their fuel as we Americans did. I still have a hard time with distance. I know what an eighth or quarter inch is, can instantly picture it in my head. Same with a foot or a yard or even a rod (16.5' for you non-surveyors). But if someone says "that's 27 mm" or "that's 84 meters" I'm standing there stupid for a minute trying to convert it to something I can visualize.
[QUOTE="On the other hand, there are two types of countries in the world. Those that use the metric system and those that put a man on the moon. Aahhh-murhica! [/QUOTE] and the 1 is the one that all the others come to in time of need, whether it be financially, medically or mechanically.
No worries Dave, no animosity here. However I clearly remember the history of "metrication" of Canada (which was happening parallel to the metrication program in the US), and why we got perpetually stuck in limbo between systems. It comes down to the fact that the US failed to follow through on their metrication program. Why? Because "public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule" and "lack of clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion", consequently your United States Metric Board was disbanded in the autumn of 1982. It not surprising that your Canadian friends can easily adopt to imperial units since we Canadians generally use both every day. Although we are officially a metric nation, most of us must use the old imperial system in our daily lives all the time. In construction for instance, lumber still comes sized in imperial units. Boards and plywood is cut and sold in feet, house blueprints are generally calculated and printed likewise. And yet the nails that are sold to bang them all together are sold in kilos. LOL Mind you the nails are still sold in imperial lengths too (2 1/4", 3", ect...). Strangely enough, even though plywood still comes in 4X8 sheets, it's thickness is gauged in millimeters now rather then 3\8", 1/2", 5/8" or 3/4" as it use to be. Although those metric sizes are so close to the inch sizes that when we ship our lumber to the US they don't even notice . In fact, it is because our Canadian mills sell the majority of their lumber to the US that we still use the old Imperial units for lumber sizing here in Canada too. It really would have been much easier to just completely convert over to metric and throw away all my Imperial wrenches and tools, but because of the US public "resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule", and because we have such close ties with you guys, I'm stuck with two complete sets of all my tools and using both systems daily. Wiki has some informative articles on the history of the Canadian and USA metrication programs, and is where I got the quotes above from.
Thats not quite true as to why we didn't change over. The real reason is we were given 17 months to change over and we all tried to convert the 17 months into metric....still are!
I was referring to my well deserved razzing on my floor elevations. I said they "were pretty darn close" and they were infact not
