Is it time for the US to adopt the metric system?

[LittleGrizzly]

Can anybody come up with a decent galactic unit btw? Either they're very, very small (rest mass of a unbounded proton) or very, very large (speed of light).

How about sound years!

When did the UK convert ?

I remember something about a green grocer who refused to switch to metric back when i was a kid, was this the time when we switched ? about the late 90's ?

I find feet and inches easier for hieght, though i am slowly getting proficent at cm's and meter's for people hieghts, when it comes to other measurements (building hieght, how far away is that light) i use cm's and m's, i have been doing newtonian eqausions of motion and thats in m's and cm's

I find temperature more natural in celsuis, i am not used to farenhiet..

Litre and kilogram are natural to me, though milk and beer and i used to in pints.... less so with the milk though...

Consider having to do the conversions good brain exercise.

I agree, if may make things more complicated sometimes but you would expect it would benefit peoples mental arithmatic, i think the reason we learn our times table up to 12 is because of this..

[Lemur]

When did the UK convert ?

According to this handy chart, Britain converted in 1965, Ireland in 1967.

[Banquo's Ghost]

According to this handy chart, Britain converted in 1965, Ireland in 1967.

Yes, we had yards, so it was a bit longer.

[The Celtic Viking]

To quote what another guy said on this subject in a different forum:

The metric system is just a subset of the universally employed Systeme International d'Unites (SI units). Every engineer, scientist and mathematician on the planet uses SI units. Every single derived unit expressed in SI is derived from a set of seven base units, each of which is based on a fundamental and immutable property of the universe (these units are the meter, second, ampere, Kelvin, mole, kilogram and candela). As the units for all of these are defined in terms of immutable properties of the entire universe, the SI system is overwhelmingly superior in every way to any other system. Any quantity in the universe can be expressed in terms of the SI units. For example, If you want to measure charge, it is simply the current-time product in a region. Thus, 1C is one Ampere-second, or 1As. Magnetic fields are produced by moving charges, and the strength of magnetic fields (also called flux density) is related to the velocity, charge and the force exerted. Velocity is a derived unit (ms-1), so is charge (As), and so is force (kgms-2). The derived unit for magnetic fields (Teslas) are equivalent (in base units) to kgs-2A-1. Since every quantity can be expressed in terms of the base units, relating quantities is vastly easier, and entirely universal. There is no sense in not employing the SI.

So America, get out of the stone age already!