Seattlest: Seattle, Meet The Metric System

Simonian

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:43:56 -0800

Didn't we lose a Mars probe a few years back because of a metric conversion error? Then there's that old tv movie starring William Devane not as a Kennedy, but rather as the pilot of a passenger jet flying from Canada to the US that got filled by the litre, not the gallon and ran out of gas a quarter of the way to its destination. (He managed to land it anyway on a disused airstrip where there was a swap meet going on and everyone had to run to get out of the way.

MattEngineer

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:10:30 -0800

I'm working on an international prject right now. Converting back and forth between LPS, GPS, and CFM is killing me. I'll celebrate the day by trying not to screw up a conversion, causing an island across the world to catch on fire.

Katelyn

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:01:02 -0800

Legal or not, it wasn't until 1988 that the US made the metric system our legally "preferred" system of measurement. Not that it's meant a whole lot -- the vast majority of US residents still think and speak in terms of feet, inches and miles. The history of the metric system is fascinating, I agree!

oran_viri

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:49:13 -0800

While I’m not old enough to have remember what happened during the big metric push. I do know that the metric system in United States has a much longer history than you think. The metric system has been legal in the United States since 1866 (Metric Act of 1866) and the inch-pound units we use today were officially defined in terms of metric units since 1893. So in essence, we are using “disguised” metric units without even knowing! There’s more history than I could put into this post so those who are interested in learning about the metric system (also known as SI) should check out the US Metric Association’s website at http://www.metric.org I have heard people talking about gas stations pricing gasoline by the liter back when the pumps could not handle very high prices. The average gas price in Seattle is quickly approaching $1 per liter (which is $3.785 per gallon because a gallon has a little bit less than 4 liters). A pretty convenient figure if you ask me. Now you can comparing that to the price of bottled water or wine or Coke! Maybe it’ll make us feel better psychologically. Also with the Canadian and US dollars near parity, we don't have to mess with math to compare gas prices up there anymore which is like $1.218. Our Corolla has a 50 liter tank, so it’ll still cost me $50 to fill my empty tank.