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  4. Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?
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Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?

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Offline Colin2B

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Re: Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?
« Reply #40 on: 14/02/2018 12:18:41 »
Interesting points Alan, history tends not to forget but leaves puzzles for archeologists.
Measurements of old musical instruments made in Spain and Italy show the proportions don't fit easily into metric, but it appears they used a scale very close to the inch.
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Offline Marika

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Re: Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?
« Reply #41 on: 25/05/2018 10:44:34 »
At this point it would be too difficult and too expensive. As an engineer from the U.S., I can tell you that we learn both unit systems growing up in school, and learn engineering problems in both systems as well throughout University. We actually hated getting problems in English, metric is a lot easier to solve with. In the industry, unless it's an international contract, a lot of engineering projects are done in English. Many of our measurement tools are capable of English and metric, but we try to avoid or prevent the need to perform conversions on one project. Conversion failure is not fun. That being said, although I have solved many problems in metric, it is still hard for me to visualise how fast 60 km per hour is, but 60 mph is easy.
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Re: Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?
« Reply #42 on: 25/05/2018 10:58:11 »
Quote from: Marika on 25/05/2018 10:44:34
done in English

Is that American for "Imperial"?
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Re: Whatever happened to the metric system conversion in the United States?
« Reply #43 on: 25/05/2018 11:05:01 »
Quote from: chris on 25/05/2018 10:58:11
Quote from: Marika on 25/05/2018 10:44:34
done in English

Is that American for "Imperial"?

Yes! In the U.S. "English" = "Imperial" and usually we just call metric "SI".
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