
Originally Posted by
Raistlin
The metric system will never catch on in the US. It's been tried before. (and failed because it sucks).
The metric system is the best system to use in a lab setting. Science in every country uses metric measurements. But for day-to-day lives, people here like using the imperial system, including me. Fahrenheit, feet, and pounds, especially, would be hard to do away with. What do you have equivalent to a foot in metric? You jump from a tiny centimeter to a huge meter, whereas in imperial you have inches, feet, and then yards. Decimeter I guess would be a bit better, but does anyone use that?
Also, being divisible by 5 and 10 is nice, but being divisible by 3 and 4 is also really nice. There's a reason our time system is based on 60 minutes, 24 hours and everyone accepts it. Just like 12 inches in a foot, it's easily divisible by a bunch of common numbers (2, 3, 4, especially). Who needs to measure a tenth of a meter?