Good Morning Sunday, 31st August 2025

Couldn’t agree more Foxy, I’ve never understood Fahrenheit, never will. Just like the examples you mentioned, Celsius - we actually use the synonym “centigrade” - seems more logical too, and so much easier. :smiley:

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I have lived overseas for many years, and speak fluent “metric.” Even so, I think in degrees F, and convert Kg and lengths into pounds/ounces and feet/inches/miles, respectively, in my head. I also round off a lot. 100 kph becomes 60, not 62, and 1 pound is 450 grams, not 454. I still do not understand all of the various foot/shoes size measurements.

It is my theory that the USA did not go metric in the1960s, because of the way they tried it. Had they just put both measures on all signs and labels, then removed the US units say 10 or 20 years later, people would have understood and accepted it. Instead, they told people how to convert them, so we had to learn things like 2.2 pounds to a kilogram, 33.8 ounces to a liter, and 62 miles to a kilometer. None of the numbers are easy to work with, and the arithmetic-phobic American people as a whole said, “Metric is hard. I’m not doing it.”

The mixed units caused the Mars climate orbiter to be destroyed in the late 1990s because one piece of code or group of programmers was working with metric, and the other was working with US units. Maybe that story is apochryphal , but I read it at the time. It had something to do with where the programs were written. One group was in Europe, and the other in the US… and never the twain shall meet.

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Apart from temperature I more or less do the same as you Don. I spent most of my working life as a mechanical engineer and general machinist. Some drawings came in imperial and some in metric. Further more, some machines were calibrated in metric and some were calibrated in Imperial…So it became necessary to be able to convert quickly and accurately, so millimeters to inches and inches to millimeters became second nature. However, I still work in gallons and miles, but I was also a runner and some road races were 10K or 5K with no mention of miles…I also ran hills and mountains and I still can’t get my head around a 1000 metre high peak, that remains at around 3000 foot high give or take…and the marathon will always be 26.2 miles to me. So apart from temperature, we have a lot in common…

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I disagree with that.

Personally I think Australia did it the right way, Once they changed over Imperial measurements were never mentioned again, there was even a ban on importing rulers with inches on them. There were no conversion factors, it was just metric.

Things that the day before were 8ft by 4ft suddenly became 2420mm by 1220mm, speed limit and road signs changed overnight. Weather forecasts were immediately only in Celsius. Imperial measurements were never spoken of again people had to get used to it and they did.

Personally, at the time ,I very much resented the change but am so glad they did it that way, the half hearted way the UK did it was a total cockup. The country changed from coal gas to natural gas in a day what was so hard about going metric?

Metrication, decimalisation and the electoral system are three things Australia did really well. Not perfect but pretty damn close.

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We’re lucky, we’ve always had the metric system! Never any confusion.

They should have done that here Bruce, we’d all be over it now