The problem with the US non-approach to the metric changeover was precisely expecting people to learn to convert mathematically. When I moved to Europe at age 20, it took me all of about 2 weeks to realise that a kilo of potatoes is so many, a litre of milk is this much, and if you’re buying fabric to make a dress you need about so many metres. In the summer, 25ºC is a pleasant day—but where I live, high summer can mean 40º plus, which simply means “hot, hot, hot.” If America had done as the rest of the world did, simply declaring a date when all measurements would be metric, the population would have got on with it. As the US really had no intention of switching over, they faffed around with conversion activities in the schools etc, but never actually changed anything. This provided plenty of salaries for the people in charge of creating those activities and writing unread reports on the situation which is still status quo today.
orinoco womble over 8 years ago
The problem with the US non-approach to the metric changeover was precisely expecting people to learn to convert mathematically. When I moved to Europe at age 20, it took me all of about 2 weeks to realise that a kilo of potatoes is so many, a litre of milk is this much, and if you’re buying fabric to make a dress you need about so many metres. In the summer, 25ºC is a pleasant day—but where I live, high summer can mean 40º plus, which simply means “hot, hot, hot.” If America had done as the rest of the world did, simply declaring a date when all measurements would be metric, the population would have got on with it. As the US really had no intention of switching over, they faffed around with conversion activities in the schools etc, but never actually changed anything. This provided plenty of salaries for the people in charge of creating those activities and writing unread reports on the situation which is still status quo today.
Alec Tronn over 8 years ago
When I was in England in the 90s the road signs were both in kilometers as well as miles. We really could’ve done the same.
BrianTurks10 over 8 years ago
I will use my Bike