| Metric System In The United States |
Article Index for Metric |
Website Links For United States |
Information AboutMetric System In The United States |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT METRICATION IN THE UNITED STATES | |
| economic history of the united states | |
| metrication in the united stateseconomic history of the united states | |
| metrication in the united states | |
| metrication by country | |
| united states | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
|
19TH CENTURY In the early 1800s, the U.S. Coast And Geodetic Survey (the government's surveying and map-making agency) used Meter and Kilogram standards brought from France . In 1866 , Congress authorized the use of the metric system and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures. In 1875 , the United States solidified their commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the '' Convention Du Mètre ''. The signing of this international agreement concluded five years of meetings in which the metric system was reformulated, refining the accuracy of its standards. The Treaty of the Meter, also known as the "Meter Convention", established the '' Bureau International Des Poids Et Mesures '' (BIPM, International Bureau of Weights and Measures) in Sèvres, France , to provide standards of measurement for worldwide use. In 1893 , under the Mendenhall Order , metric standards, developed through international cooperation under the auspices of BIPM, were adopted as the fundamental standards for length and mass in the United States. The Customary Measurements – the foot, pound, quart, etc. – have been defined in relation to the meter and the kilogram ever since. The 1895 Utah Constitution mandates in Article 10, Section 11, that "The Metric System shall be taught in the public schools of the State". 20TH CENTURY The Conférence Générale Des Poids Et Mesures (General Conference on Weights and Measures), the governing body that has overall responsibility for the metric system, and which is made up of the signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter, approved an updated version of the metric system in 1960. This modern system is called ''Le Système International d'Unités'' or the ''International System of Units'', abbreviated SI . On February 10 , 1964 , the National Bureau of Standards (now known as the National Institute Of Standards And Technology ) issued the following statement: Henceforth it shall be the policy of the National Bureau of Standards to use the units of the International System (SI), as adopted by the 11th General Conference of Weights and Measures (October 1960), except when the use of these units would obviously impair communication or reduce the usefulness of a report. The United Kingdom began a transition to the metric system in 1965 to more fully mesh its business and trade practices with those of the European Economic Community . The conversion of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth nations to SI created a new sense of urgency regarding the use of metric units in the United States. In 1968, Congress authorized a three-year study of systems of measurement in the U.S., with particular emphasis on the feasibility of adopting SI. The detailed U.S. Metric Study was conducted by the Department Of Commerce . A 45-member advisory panel consulted with and took testimony from hundreds of consumers, business organizations, labor groups, manufacturers, and state and local officials. The final report of the study, " A Metric America: A Decision Whose Time Has Come ," concluded that the U.S. would eventually join the rest of the world in the use of the metric system of measurement. The study found that measurement in the United States was already based on metric units in many areas and that it was becoming more so every day. The majority of study participants believed that conversion to the metric system was in the best interests of the nation, particularly in view of the importance of foreign trade and the increasing influence of technology in American life. The study recommended that the United States implement a carefully planned transition to predominant use of the metric system over a ten-year period. Congress passed the [http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/pub814.htm#act Metric Conversion Act of 1975] "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States." The Act, however, did not require a ten-year conversion period. A process of voluntary conversion was initiated, and the U.S. Metric Board was established. The Board was charged with "devising and carrying out a broad program of planning, coordination, and public education, consistent with other national policy and interests, with the aim of implementing the policy set forth in this Act." The efforts of the Metric Board were largely ignored by the American public, and in 1981, the Board reported to Congress that it lacked the clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion. Due to this apparent ineffectiveness, and in a Reagan effort to reduce federal spending, the Metric Board was disestablished in the fall of 1982. The Board's demise increased doubts about the United States' commitment to Metrication . Public and private sector metric transition slowed at the same time that the very reasons for it became more pressing: the increasing competitiveness of other nations and the demands of global marketplaces. Congress included new encouragement for U.S. industrial metrication in the Omnibus Trade And Competitiveness Act Of 1988 . This legislation amended the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and designates the metric system as "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce". The legislation states that the Federal Government has a responsibility to assist industry, especially small business, as it voluntarily converts to the metric system of measurement. Federal agencies were required by this legislation, with certain exceptions, to use the metric system in their procurement, grants and other business-related activities by the end of 1992. While not mandating metric use in the private sector, the Federal Government has sought to serve as a catalyst in the metric conversion of the country's trade, industry, and commerce. Exceptions were allowed for the highway and construction industries (the Department of Transportation eventually reversed position and now requires metric units) while use in the military is generally high due to the need to interchange parts with other nations' militaries (an exception being measurement of barrel size on some older guns, where the US uses fractions of an inch for Caliber ). Republican leaders in Congress attempted to ban use of the metric system on federal highways in 1992 and 1993. [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r102:E15SE2-437: However, these anti-metric bills were not met with much enthusiasm by the House and failed without a vote. 21ST CENTURY Pro-metrication efforts The current effort toward national metrication is based on the claim that industrial and commercial productivity, mathematics and science education, and the competitiveness of American products and services in world markets would be enhanced by completing the change to the metric system of units. Many Americans, however, remain unconvinced of this position, or disagree over whether and how to subsidize and enforce complete conversion, which, if undertaken, would likely incur considerable expense, in the near term, for millions of businesses and government agencies. A potential problem for proponents of metrication is that many Americans, thirty years after the 1970 s metric push, have little interest in metric usage. Daily life no longer features even dual usage of units such as Celsius for temperature, so most Americans have little contact with metric units on a daily basis. Those who need to use the metric system for work learn it, those who travel overseas learn enough to get by and many others see no compelling reason to use it. The use of two different systems was the contributing factor in the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998. NASA specified metric units in the contract. NASA and other organizations worked in metric units but one subcontractor, Lockheed Martin , provided thruster performance data to the team in pound force seconds instead of newton seconds. The spacecraft was intended to orbit Mars at about 150 km altitude but the incorrect data meant that it descended to about 57 km and probably burned up in the Martian atmosphere. Current usage The status of metric conversion in the U.S. varies by sector of the economy. Daily life While most Americans have at least heard of the metric system, metric usage remains low at the individual level. Weather reports are given in customary units (with the exception of hurricanes, where pressures are typically given in millibars at the national level). Few Americans would know what to wear if outside Temperature were reported to be 14° Celsius. The BTU remain the common measure of heating and cooling. People know their clothing sizes in inches. The more common SI Prefix es are widely known, but not necessarily in connection with the metric system. For example, computer speeds are measured in gigahertz and lotteries are named ''Megabucks.'' The letter ''K'' is widely accepted as meaning "thousand" (e.g., "She earned over 100K last year"). This usage has largely replaced the abbreviation ''m'' that was commonly used for "thousand" before the 1960s. Consumer and retail Most products are sold in English quantities, with a metric equivalent shown, e.g. "1 lb (454 g)". Some items are produced and sold in rounded metric quantities (e.g., dental floss is often sold in 50 meter packages). Perhaps the most common metric item sold is the "2-liter" bottle of Soft Drink s, but attempts to sell 3- or 4-liter bottles of Milk , instead of gallons, have been largely unsuccessful. Half-liter (500 ml) and one-liter containers of soft drinks are increasingly sold alongside more traditional 12 oz, 16 oz, 20 oz, and 24 oz (710 ml) sizes. Wine is sold in standard bottles of 750 mL and a fifth of Liquor , once one fifth of a gallon or 757 mL, is now commonly 750 mL. Household products such as Shampoo , Mouthwash , and Dental Floss have begun to be sold in metric sizes, and PowerBar s and similar products have always been sold (but not marketed) by the gram. Consumer-size Photographic Film is commonly sold in a 35 Mm Standard , although print sizes and Large Format films are defined in inches. The standard method for sizing Tires combines millimeters for tread width and inches for rim diameter. Since 1992, the federal Fair Packaging And Labeling Act (FPLA) has required consumer goods to be labeled in both customary and metric units. There is a strong effort underway by industry to amend this law to allow manufacturers to use metric-only labeling. Most states in the U.S. have already adopted laws allowing metric-only labeling. [http://www.metricmethods.com/UPLR.html According to the 20 December 1979 EU Directive, from 1 January 2010 the European Union will no longer allow dual-unit labels to appear on products [http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/EUMetricDirective2010.pdf]. This directive was originally to implemented on 1 January 1990 and two 10-year extensions have subsequently been granted, extending the deadline to 2010. It is questionable as to whether a third extension would be granted. Pending the EU deadline, an amendment to the FPLA to allow metric-only labeling would allow manufacturers, both importers and exporters, to avoid the significant costs associated with having to produce two distinct package types. A significant advance in American metrication could result from some products displaying metric weights and measures only. Construction The construction industry has been the slowest to adopt metric units. Dimensional Lumber still comes in standard inch widths and depths (e.g., "2 by 4's"), although the finished, cured Lumber will not actually have the indicated dimensions. Lengths are commonly 8 and 16 feet. Building Code s are established at the local level and the U.S. has extensive building standards that are based on English units. Because of Canada 's proximity to the U.S., issues of common units still arise. (Even in other otherwise metricated countries, units customary for that country often continue to be used; for example, traditional construction in Japan still uses Japanese units predating metrication.) Education Most students are taught the metric system in elementary school. The lack of popular metric usage, however, provides little reinforcement. As a result, while students might understand the concepts underlying the metric system, they do not necessarily have an intuitive sense of what the units mean. Electricity and energy There are no customary US units for electric current, potential difference, charge etc. The metric ones ( Ampere , Volt , Coulomb , etc.) have always been used. Energy is often measured in Watt-hour s, rather than the SI Joule , and also in BTU s. The rated power of Power Plant Steam Turbine s is frequently quoted in Horsepower , though. Heating, cooling and combustion power are often measured in BTUs per hour. Fuel prices are mostly given in customary units, e.g. dollars per gallon, per barrel, per thousand cubic feet, per long ton, etc. The SI term Hertz has completely replaced the older term ''cycles per second'' as a unit of frequency. Financial services The U.S. was one of the first nations to introduce decimalized currency. Some Commodity Market prices are quoted in customary units (e.g., Barrel s of oil, Troy Ounce s of gold, etc.); others are quoted in metric units (e.g., Metric Ton s (tonnes) of wheat). Manufacturing Globalization of manufacturing has led to wide adoption of metric standards, although this is not yet universal. After a confusing period where Automobile s were assembled with both customary and metric Fastener s in each vehicle, cars are now universally built with metric parts. Automobile engines, formerly having been measured in cubic inches, are currently measured in liters. The electronics and computer industries largely converted to metric standards as new technologies were introduced toward the end of the 20th century. Thus 5-1/4 inch Floppy Disk s were truly in 5-1/4 inch-wide packages. They were replaced by "3-1/2 inch" disks that were actually 90 mm wide. CD / DVD disks are 120 mm in diameter, but their size is rarely mentioned. Military The U.S. military uses metric measurements extensively to ensure interoperability with allied forces (particularly for kilometers), and using millimeter-sized ammunition though a few exceptions exist (ie. .50- Caliber guns). Most military vehicles are built to metric standards. Science and medicine In science, metric usage is essentially universal. Medicine is generally metric, but where interaction with patients is required, usage is often mixed. Doctors often measure a patient's weight in pounds to compute a dosage of medicine administered in grams or milliliters. Even in many cases for which metric units are otherwise used, U.S. practice often varies from the rest of the world. For example, U.S. Diabetes patients measure their Blood Sugar levels in milligrams per deciliter, whereas most of the rest of the world uses millimoles/liter. In hospital settings, patient data is typically recorded using metric quantities, but all interaction with patients is done with reference to customary units (i.e., patient weights might be recorded in kilograms but discussed with patients in pounds). Usage among veterinarians varies, but due to the heavy emphasis on public interaction, animal weights (e.g., for cats or dogs) is nearly always recorded and reported in pounds and ounces. Sports Americans are frequently exposed to metric units through coverage of international sporting events, particularly the Olympics . Races in the U.S. are run in metric distances, like the 100 meter sprint or 5 km ("5K") races; however, measured distances like Shot Put , High Jump and Discus Throw are often in feet and inches, except at the international level. Even most casual runners prefer to think of a "10K" race as a "6.2 mile" race. The field and court sizes for most popular team sports (even Soccer ) were originally set in English units. Some sporting equipment, such as Ski s, are sold in metric units. Transportation Highway speed limits are posted in miles per hour and distances are largely announced in miles, yards, or feet, although a few dual mile/km signs can be found, mostly left over from demonstration projects that are no longer supported. {Link without Title} One exception to this is Interstate 19 in Arizona, which is completely signed in metric (except for speed limit signs). Gasoline is sold by the gallon. Domestic airline flights are assigned altitudes in feet and measure speed in knots. Nautical Chart s show depth in Fathom s. Railroads use the standard Gauge of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches, as does most of Europe. POPULAR CULTURE The popular cartoon '' The Simpsons '' has made reference to the metric system in several episodes:
In an episode of '' Saturday Night Live '', Dan Aykroyd appears as a US Government official explaining the forthcoming metric alphabet, or "Decibet," wherein the first four letters are unchanged; "E F," "G H I," and "L M N O" are each combined into single letters; and the remaining "trash letters" are combined into an unintelligible blotch. He then proceeds with a comic explanation of how this will affect spelling and pronunciation. EXTERNAL LINKS
|