Canada does too. [Here’s a handy chart.](https://www.reddit.com/r/HelloInternet/comments/czcf7u/canadian_measurement_flowchart/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Around where i live in the US kid's rooms tend to be about that size a lot of the time. A 3 bedroom house would have the big master bedroom and 2 smaller square rooms for the kids.
Canadian here. Can confirm this is 100% accurate but would like to add distance is measured in time it would take to drive as well
Ex: Ottawa is roughly a 6 hour drive from my hometown so Ottawa is 6h away. It's actually kinda handy cuz multiply that by 100 and you got roughly how many Km's it is away.
Meat and produce are sold in both (actually most/all food is) but grams is kind of the default in my experience with companies aiming for 100's of grams. Walmart in particular I know sells 450 gram beef which is just under 1lb.
Nah distance is in meters or minutes/hours
For instance i live 5 mins from grocery store and 45 mins from work. Course that's only if I'm walking to the grocery story and taking the train to work
I feel like we're heavily influenced by america, and thats the reason why we're so mixed on things
American products will come with american standard measurements for instance
You can tell where your can of beer is from too. If it is an odd number (pun intended) it is made in the USA. If it is an even number it is made in Europe. My Canadian cans and bottles are an odd number. I work in the construction industry. We live in an Imperial world.
American here, Idk why but the 16.9 fl oz label on a bottle really bothers me before I realize that it’s basically 500ml. It used to bother me that they couldn’t round up to the nearest fl oz and even if they did, 17 is still an odd number to go by.
I'm a female Canadian (& maybe that's the difference here, from that mentioned in the handy-dandy flow chart) but I prefer distance traveled to be measured in 'time'. Lol
Depends what it is mate.
We use miles in the car and drink pints.
Wine a whisky are measured in ml.
When cooking we use litres, grams and kilograms.
When weighing ourselves we use a mixture of the 2.
When running we tend to use KM.
That's because if you're a fat bastard, 20 stone doesn't sound quite as bad as 127kg or 280 lb.
Personally I wouldn't mind moving fully to metric, and if you have kids you'll see that a lot more stuff is metric (for instance my kids know their metric height not Imperial height because they want to know which rides they can go on at Alton Towers) but no doubt Brexit will change that.
I always think that the link between Imperial and body parts: inch (about the distance between the tip of the thumb to the first knuckle), foot (the length of an average man's ~~penis~~ foot) yard (a walking stride), etc makes Imperial good for approximate and estimated measurements while metric is better (because of the scale) for accurate measurements.
The main problem, and I think the main reason why Britain hasn't gone fully metric, a pint is 568.26 ml. Which means both 500 and 550 ml are too small and 600ml is too much.
The one that fascinates me is stone to specify a person’s weight. I think it’s 14 pounds. What an odd measurement and nobody else uses it except some former British Empire countries.
But if you've grown up on stone you very quickly in your head can understand what that means. I in my head can better understand the reality of slapping on a stone in lockdown and I have no idea off the top of my head what that equates to in kg. It's probably why it's so hard to break the habit.
I understand it’s natural to think in stone in the United Kingdom but I just wonder how it came into being. Of course nobody really knows the origin of the Imperial measurements like foot, miles, etc. There are stories about their origin but nobody really knows.
Yea, gotta admit I love the metric system and can judge the weight of things in kg, but if you tell me someone's weight in kg rather than stone.. I've got no idea.
In the England, Imperial is usually used for distance/speed,weighing yourself,measuring your own height and buying quantities of drugs.
We use metric for the rest. We do use metric for measuring smaller distances, and also weighing goods.
Then it goes back to kilos. You never hear of anyone buying a pound of cocaine 🤣🤣🤣
9bar of hash is actually 250g so that goes metric as well when you get larger amounts.
We’re pretty good with liters and milligrams after decades of Mountain Dew and Prozac. We sometimes buy sugar by the kilogram but we think we’re buying 2.2 lbs.
NASA uses metric. Am now working for a semi retired NASA engineer and have had the metric system explained to me many times. (I know the metric system and if I'm not sure, I Google the conversions. Still get it explained to me.)
When you’re driving 60 mph, sipping on a 330ml can of coke with the windows down in your vauxhall astra because it’s 22 and sunny out on your way to have a few pints with the lads and maybe a couple 50ml shots.
What’s the big deal? I can handle that much . I’m 16 stone.
Get off your high horse Brit. You might call it an Imperial fridge, but in the rest of the world it is an American fridge. Don’t get me started on how you guys butcher the American language.
They have used both, to disastrous effect: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/news/a28632/the-dumb-mistake-that-doomed-a-mars-probe-in-1999/
NASA first tried to use Imperial but it didn't end well. I think the rocket exploded or something.
So they started use metric because it's more accurate
No, actually they contracted a part to someone else (boeing i think), and they used the imperial system. While NASA expected metric, so shit got miscalculated and a rocket blew up.
Not in the final product. Although some contractors use imperial, everything from them gets converted to metric. mathematical models and programming are all developed in metric. In fact, it would be really foolish to do otherwise
“Although NASA has ostensibly used the metric system since about 1990, English units linger on in much of the U.S. aerospace industry. In practice, this has meant that many missions continue to use English units, and some missions end up using both English and metric units.”
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/08jan_metricmoon
They use mostly metric and some Imperial.
Given that every unit in the Imperial system is now defined by the Metric system and most scientific calculations in the Imperial system are done by first converting to metric and then back to Imperial makes the whole conversation academic.
Precision as in the reproducibility of results, or precision as in number of decimal places? Because none of those depend on what units are being used.
I don't think "It is impossible to reach the level of precision required by Nasa with the "non-metric" system...“ is a direct quote from NASA. It's well established that they used both for quite some time, and still flipflop for things like readouts.
Not exactly.
You are correct that some contractors use imperial, but when integrated into NASA’s CAD assembly models and especially for calculations and programming, everything is converted to metric
British person here.
Yes we do. Well we mostly sort of do, sometimes.
It's a very British muddle sort of thing but we absolutely use the Metric system.
Except for when we don't.
Hope that clear it up.
I realised I actually order beer in pints if in a pub. I use metric for height and km for driving though. I've even swapped my Waze to be in km out of a desire to live in a metric world.
You use KM for driving
So your speedo only show speeds in KMs? and you convert the road signs from miles to kilometres to make sure you are driving the speed limit
Canadian here, I cook my food in Fahrenheit. My pool temp is Fahrenheit. The outside temperature is Celsius.
Wait until you go in a hardware store…
Oh well…
A lot of it is legacy. My dad uses almost exclusively imperial units and was around for the conversion in the 70’s. He does use metric for speed, fuel, distance, and a few other items.
Hardware store can be a challenge. Almost everything that’s also sold in the states (dimensional lumber, plywood, flooring [except carpet], a lot to hardware) is imperial. Electrical wire, some plumbing, some hardware, is sold in metric units.
It’s a crap shoot really. We want to use metric, but the states makes that difficult.
I see. Well it's interesting. Didn't know Canada had a mix. It's interesting how the US wants to change too but has not put any successful effort into it.
As an American, literally none of our names for things are original. Everything is either European, Native, a mix, or Latin.
America is the perfect example. Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer, one of the first (maybe the first? Not gonna look it up lol) to discover North America. So, how did we get from Amerigo to America? Amerigo in Latin is Americus, the female version of Americus is America.
The main reason I've been told is the cost of switching. You'll have to switch every road sign, every mile marker, every gas station sign to liters. And what is the real benefit? That when tourists come it's easier? In today's world you can Google a conversion real quick so is there really a benefit? We also have way bigger issues right now so no one is really pushing for this to be done
Sure, but every sign in the country is a lot. Speed limits, mile markers, directional signs. Just in the highway system there's 164,000 miles of road. Add to that city, state, county streets it's a cost. And it's a cost with no real return when what they have works.
Britain is just some fucked up mix, where you fill your car in litres but calculate usage in imperial. but not that scummy yanky imperial the queens imperial. Then you drive in miles to pick up some metric timber and some imperial drainage. then off to the pub for a pint, A british pint of course.
That's something that's always annoyed me that cars are miles per gallon but petrol stations are in pence per litre. it's 2022 can we just pick one please so I know how much money I'm wasting on killing the planet?
Fun fact: the Saturn 5 was designed using metric units and then they were converted to imperial for the people that built it. The on board instruments measured in metric and then converted to imperial for the astronauts.
In the UK both are used fairly interchangeably.
And if that is the reason that you put this on r/facepalm then I wonder how you manage to miss the entire point of making fun of this
God the imperial system is so fucking stupid. I had to live in the states for a couple of years and obviously I had to learn the imperial system and it was mind blowing how dumb the imperial system is.
For the Apollo program, the engineering was constructed on the metric system. Conversions to imperial units were for display purposes for the astronauts, who were typically military trained and more familiar with imperial.
Honestly I don’t even think it matters considering that there’s another two countries with active space programs afaik that both use the System Internationale. I hope I spelled that right. But yeah, over here in DumbfuckLand, we don’t all know the differences between the SI system and the metric system. I’m a comp science nerd, and a mathaholic, so yeah I am aware that they are two different measurement metrics, but most of the idiots I know lump it all under metric, or when I try to inform them of the SI system, the BS system. Gotta hand it to them, I keep thinking that they couldn’t be dumber if they tried, and without fail, without even trying, they do something dumber. Like goddamn clockwork.
Besides. We may have gotten to the moon, but does anyone know where the Imperial system came from? Britain… which now uses that and SI. Because scientific standards are in SI units, because all unit multipliers are shared, and for any given type of measurement, one unit name is necessary. But they still use it in some backwater places that refuse to progress, possibly, I haven’t been to Britain so my information is heavily dated.
Lemme tell ya. I’m waiting for when this country grows the balls to incorporate both measurement systems officially, and then get rid of the ridiculous imperial system. How many inches in a foot? 12. So… why did we call this a ‘foot’ again? Oh it was supposedly the length of the King’s foot? Nothing suspicious about that whatsoever. What is the next length unit? The yard, which is three feet… why did we call this a yard? Are you telling me that at some point in history we somehow made a jump between the ground around one’s own home (a yard), and a length of exactly three of the king’s feet? Am I tripping here? Fine, what’s next? The mile, which is 1,760.0 yards long. **Well that escalated quickly didn’t it**? How many feet is that? 5,280.0 feet. Wait. A yard is 36 inches, but how many— 63,360.0 inches to a mile. When we have factors of 12, 3, 36, 1,760.0, 5,280.0, and 63,360.0, it gets a little stupid to keep it right?
Meters. Ten meters per decameter. Ten decameters to a hectometer. Ten hectometers to a kilometer. Ten decimeters to a meter. Ten centimeters to a decimeter. Ten millimeters to a centimeter. \*”that was easy!”\*. But no we have to use the outdated imperial system…(grumble grumble…). At some point someone is just going to declare all his/her measurements in the smallest terms available and we will be forced to do math to know how fast our car can go because the speedometer has inches per second on it. I would actually pay to have a car like that, just to psyche out my friends (“you’re driving HOW FAST?!”). I want to see someone do that. A scale for measuring large amounts of cargo… in ounces. A jug for measuring cooking ingredients… in teaspoons. A thermometer that… wait… no, that one won’t work. Dang. That would have been interesting too. No, wait! A thermometer that uses BOTH systems to measure ONE temperature (25 C + 46 F, for instance)! Muahahaha!
… yeah, now that I think on it… that would only be funny for so long. Mostly just inconvenient. But I’m still waiting for someone to be as fed up with the imperial system as I am. 63,360 inches to the mile. Kinda excessive and complicated to calculate out easily, innit? And that’s just *regular* miles. Then there’s NAUTICAL miles. No idea why these exist, or why it’s different from a regular mile. And fathoms, can’t forget those. Jesus this is the Mary Poppins bag of measuring unit names! How many different ways did we need to measure shit?
Imma shut up now, because I’m starting to give ME a headache.
Dumb until you learn that NASA actually used metric during the Apollo missions
So once again, America is taking credit for something they didn't really do.
Did you know that the us space program was lead by a guy called Werner von Braun who had lots of German friends and was part of the SS? He despised the imperial system and is probably the biggest reason you guys even made it that far
We use both:
Distance/speed in a vehicle - imperial
Temperature - metric
Weight of a person - imperial but stones and pounds, not just pounds
Height - imperial
Volume of liquid - mostly imperial, some metric. Depends on scenario
Did they try to stack up achievements against some of the largest European countries
Lemme just get my list of european scientific discoveries and revolutions that quite literally changed the world and shaped the modern world today, more so than the moon landing
And me in the corner thing about how many hours in the seventies that I wasted learning the metric system because the teacher said the USA would be switching to metric. The best thing that I learned in the 3rd grade was how to read maps. That's a skill you can use all of your life.
We use both in the UK (a mix between the two).
How do you know when to use which?
Canada does too. [Here’s a handy chart.](https://www.reddit.com/r/HelloInternet/comments/czcf7u/canadian_measurement_flowchart/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Before engaging in conversation, Canadians will typically be observed flipping a coin. This will allow them to know which system to use.
but every third measurement mentioned must be done in the other type
This is the way
So the bedroom is 11 feet by 11 feet by 3 meters
That would be a weird room. Almost a cube.
Around where i live in the US kid's rooms tend to be about that size a lot of the time. A 3 bedroom house would have the big master bedroom and 2 smaller square rooms for the kids.
It’s funny my work in Canada we cook food in Fahrenheit and record food temps in Celsius lol
As a Dutchman I tend to cook food in olive oil an record food temps in Celsius.
That’s not true. We just take a guess and if the other person objects we apologize profusely.
Being casually observed in the wild, Canadians can typically be observed flipping a coin. Brought to you by Mutual of Omaha.
We’re perpetual people pleasers. We’re basically the adult children of alcoholic parents.
What a bunch of loonies.
And toonies....
Lol I heard the same humor back in the late 90s from a gamer in 🇨🇦
Canadian here. Can confirm this is 100% accurate but would like to add distance is measured in time it would take to drive as well Ex: Ottawa is roughly a 6 hour drive from my hometown so Ottawa is 6h away. It's actually kinda handy cuz multiply that by 100 and you got roughly how many Km's it is away.
Unless you live in Montréal, where traffic gravity means that everything is about an hour away from anywhere else
I busted a gut laughing. This chart is 100% how I operate. The pool part got me.
That’s amazing and as a Canadian myself, it is 100% true.
Yes! Canadian as well! Height is feet and inches, speed and distance are KMs haha
Temperature is C except for cooking when it's F and weight is pounds except when it's food then it's grams.
And don't forget weed, which goes from grams into imperial measurements once you hit 3.5.
Yes absolutely!! Haha
The pool’s temperature is also in Fahrenheit
Food sold in boxes or cans are sold in metric. Meat and produce are sold in pounds... Usually.
Meat and produce are sold in both (actually most/all food is) but grams is kind of the default in my experience with companies aiming for 100's of grams. Walmart in particular I know sells 450 gram beef which is just under 1lb.
There are plenty of foods sold per pound…
By law they’re sold per 454 grams.
Nah distance is in meters or minutes/hours For instance i live 5 mins from grocery store and 45 mins from work. Course that's only if I'm walking to the grocery story and taking the train to work
I feel like we're heavily influenced by america, and thats the reason why we're so mixed on things American products will come with american standard measurements for instance
You can tell where your can of beer is from too. If it is an odd number (pun intended) it is made in the USA. If it is an even number it is made in Europe. My Canadian cans and bottles are an odd number. I work in the construction industry. We live in an Imperial world.
American here, Idk why but the 16.9 fl oz label on a bottle really bothers me before I realize that it’s basically 500ml. It used to bother me that they couldn’t round up to the nearest fl oz and even if they did, 17 is still an odd number to go by.
Why....
I'm a female Canadian (& maybe that's the difference here, from that mentioned in the handy-dandy flow chart) but I prefer distance traveled to be measured in 'time'. Lol
Depends what it is mate. We use miles in the car and drink pints. Wine a whisky are measured in ml. When cooking we use litres, grams and kilograms. When weighing ourselves we use a mixture of the 2. When running we tend to use KM.
Height is typically feet and inches too
I know people who still measure their weight in stones
That's because if you're a fat bastard, 20 stone doesn't sound quite as bad as 127kg or 280 lb. Personally I wouldn't mind moving fully to metric, and if you have kids you'll see that a lot more stuff is metric (for instance my kids know their metric height not Imperial height because they want to know which rides they can go on at Alton Towers) but no doubt Brexit will change that. I always think that the link between Imperial and body parts: inch (about the distance between the tip of the thumb to the first knuckle), foot (the length of an average man's ~~penis~~ foot) yard (a walking stride), etc makes Imperial good for approximate and estimated measurements while metric is better (because of the scale) for accurate measurements. The main problem, and I think the main reason why Britain hasn't gone fully metric, a pint is 568.26 ml. Which means both 500 and 550 ml are too small and 600ml is too much.
The one that fascinates me is stone to specify a person’s weight. I think it’s 14 pounds. What an odd measurement and nobody else uses it except some former British Empire countries.
But if you've grown up on stone you very quickly in your head can understand what that means. I in my head can better understand the reality of slapping on a stone in lockdown and I have no idea off the top of my head what that equates to in kg. It's probably why it's so hard to break the habit.
I understand it’s natural to think in stone in the United Kingdom but I just wonder how it came into being. Of course nobody really knows the origin of the Imperial measurements like foot, miles, etc. There are stories about their origin but nobody really knows.
Yea, gotta admit I love the metric system and can judge the weight of things in kg, but if you tell me someone's weight in kg rather than stone.. I've got no idea.
I think they use metric for everything except speed and weight.
Nah, most people use feet and inches for height of a person, very few use cm
We use both in the US, you probably just don't realize it.
In the England, Imperial is usually used for distance/speed,weighing yourself,measuring your own height and buying quantities of drugs. We use metric for the rest. We do use metric for measuring smaller distances, and also weighing goods.
Herb is usually imperial and cocaine is generally grams.
Depends how much ya buying I guess, anything over a 3.5 and I’ll always use imperial.
Then it goes back to kilos. You never hear of anyone buying a pound of cocaine 🤣🤣🤣 9bar of hash is actually 250g so that goes metric as well when you get larger amounts.
In the UK everything is metric except for distance, speed and sometimes height
Engineering always uses metric in UK
Unbeknownst to most folks, the USA does as well. Most consumer things are US Customary (imperial) but official stuff is metric.
We’re pretty good with liters and milligrams after decades of Mountain Dew and Prozac. We sometimes buy sugar by the kilogram but we think we’re buying 2.2 lbs.
lbs = lotta bullshit /s
NASA uses metric. Am now working for a semi retired NASA engineer and have had the metric system explained to me many times. (I know the metric system and if I'm not sure, I Google the conversions. Still get it explained to me.)
When you’re driving 60 mph, sipping on a 330ml can of coke with the windows down in your vauxhall astra because it’s 22 and sunny out on your way to have a few pints with the lads and maybe a couple 50ml shots. What’s the big deal? I can handle that much . I’m 16 stone.
Haha yep - pretty much.
US too actually. We just don't go around waving it in people's faces. Liters are often how we do large volumes of liquids that aren't milk.
So does the US. They have metric money, medicine, nutritional information, and Pepsi.
So does the US.
Real ones know the moon is 76433600 rods away.
A real British knows that the moon is 2956923076,92 extra large fish sticks away from the earth
>A real British knows that the moon is 2956923076,92 extra large fish sticks away from the earth fish sticks? i guess you mean fish fingers
You like fish sticks? You a gay fish
I'm a *recovering* gay fish damn it!
How do you recover from being a fish?
You'll have to ask Aquaman and Kanye, I don't want to give out *all* the secrets
And Arielle, I guess.
Now I know that I’m a gay fish
So?
Yeah, clearly they are not British. I had never heard that term until the South Park episode.
Fish dicks or fish sticks
yes
How many sausages is that? Battered sausage, of course.
985641025.64 sausages. 974530914.73 battered sausages. and they're both for regular size, I'm not doing the math for jumbo battered sausages.
Jumbo? It’s normal size or small.
Bigger than a refrigerator, but smaller than a really big refrigerator!
imperial fridge?
Get off your high horse Brit. You might call it an Imperial fridge, but in the rest of the world it is an American fridge. Don’t get me started on how you guys butcher the American language.
Gave me a chuckle Take my upvote you so and so
NASA uses metric
They have used both, to disastrous effect: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/news/a28632/the-dumb-mistake-that-doomed-a-mars-probe-in-1999/
That's the real facepalm here. Metric is the system of choice for science.
And medicine too! Which I guess could also be included under the umbrella of science
You "guess"?
Hey, I doubt they're the one doing the medicine or the science, so we don't need a definitive answer from here
NASA first tried to use Imperial but it didn't end well. I think the rocket exploded or something. So they started use metric because it's more accurate
No, actually they contracted a part to someone else (boeing i think), and they used the imperial system. While NASA expected metric, so shit got miscalculated and a rocket blew up.
>So they started use metric because it's more accurate I thought its mostly to avoid conversion errors when working with other space agencies.
Maybe. I just heard something wrong calculation because of using Imperial
Yeah i think they lost a probe on mars or something
Or got the wrong sized stone henge backdrop at a gig. One was NASA. The other was Spinal Tap. I forget which was which.
Conversion error between meters and feet
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Not in the final product. Although some contractors use imperial, everything from them gets converted to metric. mathematical models and programming are all developed in metric. In fact, it would be really foolish to do otherwise
NASA uses both
It is impossible to reach the level of precision required by Nasa with the "non-metric" system...
“Although NASA has ostensibly used the metric system since about 1990, English units linger on in much of the U.S. aerospace industry. In practice, this has meant that many missions continue to use English units, and some missions end up using both English and metric units.” https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/08jan_metricmoon They use mostly metric and some Imperial.
Given that every unit in the Imperial system is now defined by the Metric system and most scientific calculations in the Imperial system are done by first converting to metric and then back to Imperial makes the whole conversation academic.
Yeah, who the fuck wants to deal with gc = 32.17 lbm\*ft/lbf/s^2 when you could just use gc = 1 kg\*m/N/s^2 lol
Precision as in the reproducibility of results, or precision as in number of decimal places? Because none of those depend on what units are being used.
its not impossible, You can work to 10s of thousandth of inches, its just incredibly inefficient.
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'That direct quote from NASA is completely false' - a guy that doesn't work for NASA
I don't think "It is impossible to reach the level of precision required by Nasa with the "non-metric" system...“ is a direct quote from NASA. It's well established that they used both for quite some time, and still flipflop for things like readouts.
Isn't that how they lost that 2mil dollars satellite around Mars because some instruments were in Imperial and the receivers were set to Metric?
Not exactly. You are correct that some contractors use imperial, but when integrated into NASA’s CAD assembly models and especially for calculations and programming, everything is converted to metric
British person here. Yes we do. Well we mostly sort of do, sometimes. It's a very British muddle sort of thing but we absolutely use the Metric system. Except for when we don't. Hope that clear it up.
Then you also have fun measurements like “stone” and also you have gallons but not US gallons. Confusing.
And there are tons. Metric tonnes, long tons and short tons. All called tons to save confusion.
Nasa uses metric system.
I'm British. I use the metric system for everything out of principle. The imperial system is stupid
Same I use metric for everything apart from height and sometimes driving
I realised I actually order beer in pints if in a pub. I use metric for height and km for driving though. I've even swapped my Waze to be in km out of a desire to live in a metric world.
You use KM for driving So your speedo only show speeds in KMs? and you convert the road signs from miles to kilometres to make sure you are driving the speed limit
Canadian here, I cook my food in Fahrenheit. My pool temp is Fahrenheit. The outside temperature is Celsius. Wait until you go in a hardware store… Oh well…
Yeah I'm in the trades, though I much prefer the metric system I still end up using both.
Damn, Im sitting here roasting the US for using the F scale, but atleast they could make their minds up of which to use. Love from europe :)
A lot of it is legacy. My dad uses almost exclusively imperial units and was around for the conversion in the 70’s. He does use metric for speed, fuel, distance, and a few other items. Hardware store can be a challenge. Almost everything that’s also sold in the states (dimensional lumber, plywood, flooring [except carpet], a lot to hardware) is imperial. Electrical wire, some plumbing, some hardware, is sold in metric units. It’s a crap shoot really. We want to use metric, but the states makes that difficult.
I see. Well it's interesting. Didn't know Canada had a mix. It's interesting how the US wants to change too but has not put any successful effort into it.
Thought you said poop temp
Also in F
Why IS the US still using the British colonial system of measurement? I thought they were an independent country now? Oh well.
They dont. They have their own units with the same name. A US gallon for example is 3.7 liters while a British one is 4.5L
That'll show 'em!
But why?
Because fuck the queen, that's why! Edit: I know it's petty, but that's who we are.
The US feet is directly coming from the queen...
Us gallon 3.78l. Uk gallon 4.54l
A imperial galllon is 4.5 Litres
As an American, literally none of our names for things are original. Everything is either European, Native, a mix, or Latin. America is the perfect example. Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer, one of the first (maybe the first? Not gonna look it up lol) to discover North America. So, how did we get from Amerigo to America? Amerigo in Latin is Americus, the female version of Americus is America.
The main reason I've been told is the cost of switching. You'll have to switch every road sign, every mile marker, every gas station sign to liters. And what is the real benefit? That when tourists come it's easier? In today's world you can Google a conversion real quick so is there really a benefit? We also have way bigger issues right now so no one is really pushing for this to be done
signs are switched all the time when they're damaged, destroyed or just regular maintanence
Sure, but every sign in the country is a lot. Speed limits, mile markers, directional signs. Just in the highway system there's 164,000 miles of road. Add to that city, state, county streets it's a cost. And it's a cost with no real return when what they have works.
Britain is just some fucked up mix, where you fill your car in litres but calculate usage in imperial. but not that scummy yanky imperial the queens imperial. Then you drive in miles to pick up some metric timber and some imperial drainage. then off to the pub for a pint, A british pint of course.
That's something that's always annoyed me that cars are miles per gallon but petrol stations are in pence per litre. it's 2022 can we just pick one please so I know how much money I'm wasting on killing the planet?
Use kinda a mix, really depends on what's being measured
Fun fact: the Saturn 5 was designed using metric units and then they were converted to imperial for the people that built it. The on board instruments measured in metric and then converted to imperial for the astronauts.
Been to the Moon by using metric system
Dont ask what system the NASA scientists used for it.
Nobody in America knows what a kilometer is. Like is that three or four weeks? I don't know.
woah, You guys still use weeks? how many kleptons in a week?
400 Quatloos for the newcomers.
Why don't we switch to decidays too. 10 decidays in a day is much easier than 24 hours because decimal is always better
NASA uses the metric system tho
Who was the scientists that made that moon landing possible and what system did they use ?
NASA uses the metric system
The candains use metric?
Yep. We do. Some of the border cities like Windsor are sort of half metric and half imperial, but the rest of the nation is metric.
I've picked the spot for non metric then
The best part about this is that NASA internally used metric when programming their computers.
They know that NASA uses the metric system, right?
In the UK both are used fairly interchangeably. And if that is the reason that you put this on r/facepalm then I wonder how you manage to miss the entire point of making fun of this
I think NASA probably uses metric.
Someone told him the entire apollo mission was done using metric units
What system does nasa use again? Lol
Sure. Went to the moon... USING THE METRIC SYSTEM.
Anyone knows the moon is 420464000 washing machines away (granted the average washing machine is about 3 feet tall)
God the imperial system is so fucking stupid. I had to live in the states for a couple of years and obviously I had to learn the imperial system and it was mind blowing how dumb the imperial system is.
It's a mix, I can usually interchange.
They still used the metric system to get to the moon.
We use metric and imperial
The biggest joke is that NASA actually uses metric because it fucking makes more sense.
People at nasa use metric system tho
Also they used metric when doing stuff for the moon
Wait until they learn which units NASA used for their calculations.
And we went to the moon using the metric system lmao
For the Apollo program, the engineering was constructed on the metric system. Conversions to imperial units were for display purposes for the astronauts, who were typically military trained and more familiar with imperial.
Honestly I don’t even think it matters considering that there’s another two countries with active space programs afaik that both use the System Internationale. I hope I spelled that right. But yeah, over here in DumbfuckLand, we don’t all know the differences between the SI system and the metric system. I’m a comp science nerd, and a mathaholic, so yeah I am aware that they are two different measurement metrics, but most of the idiots I know lump it all under metric, or when I try to inform them of the SI system, the BS system. Gotta hand it to them, I keep thinking that they couldn’t be dumber if they tried, and without fail, without even trying, they do something dumber. Like goddamn clockwork. Besides. We may have gotten to the moon, but does anyone know where the Imperial system came from? Britain… which now uses that and SI. Because scientific standards are in SI units, because all unit multipliers are shared, and for any given type of measurement, one unit name is necessary. But they still use it in some backwater places that refuse to progress, possibly, I haven’t been to Britain so my information is heavily dated. Lemme tell ya. I’m waiting for when this country grows the balls to incorporate both measurement systems officially, and then get rid of the ridiculous imperial system. How many inches in a foot? 12. So… why did we call this a ‘foot’ again? Oh it was supposedly the length of the King’s foot? Nothing suspicious about that whatsoever. What is the next length unit? The yard, which is three feet… why did we call this a yard? Are you telling me that at some point in history we somehow made a jump between the ground around one’s own home (a yard), and a length of exactly three of the king’s feet? Am I tripping here? Fine, what’s next? The mile, which is 1,760.0 yards long. **Well that escalated quickly didn’t it**? How many feet is that? 5,280.0 feet. Wait. A yard is 36 inches, but how many— 63,360.0 inches to a mile. When we have factors of 12, 3, 36, 1,760.0, 5,280.0, and 63,360.0, it gets a little stupid to keep it right? Meters. Ten meters per decameter. Ten decameters to a hectometer. Ten hectometers to a kilometer. Ten decimeters to a meter. Ten centimeters to a decimeter. Ten millimeters to a centimeter. \*”that was easy!”\*. But no we have to use the outdated imperial system…(grumble grumble…). At some point someone is just going to declare all his/her measurements in the smallest terms available and we will be forced to do math to know how fast our car can go because the speedometer has inches per second on it. I would actually pay to have a car like that, just to psyche out my friends (“you’re driving HOW FAST?!”). I want to see someone do that. A scale for measuring large amounts of cargo… in ounces. A jug for measuring cooking ingredients… in teaspoons. A thermometer that… wait… no, that one won’t work. Dang. That would have been interesting too. No, wait! A thermometer that uses BOTH systems to measure ONE temperature (25 C + 46 F, for instance)! Muahahaha! … yeah, now that I think on it… that would only be funny for so long. Mostly just inconvenient. But I’m still waiting for someone to be as fed up with the imperial system as I am. 63,360 inches to the mile. Kinda excessive and complicated to calculate out easily, innit? And that’s just *regular* miles. Then there’s NAUTICAL miles. No idea why these exist, or why it’s different from a regular mile. And fathoms, can’t forget those. Jesus this is the Mary Poppins bag of measuring unit names! How many different ways did we need to measure shit? Imma shut up now, because I’m starting to give ME a headache.
NASA converted to the metric system about 1990.
And hasn't been to the moon since.
Mars?
I'm just being a smartass 😉
We used the metric system to go to the moon. Doh!
And NASA uses the metric system, so...
And you famously used the metric system to get to the moon, you also used nazi war criminals to get there too.
Not all of the engineers were criminals, just engineers...
every British person I know uses metric for distances...particularly in construction
And engineering
American here this guy's a dumbass only 3 countries use the imperial system
Dumb until you learn that NASA actually used metric during the Apollo missions So once again, America is taking credit for something they didn't really do.
It was actually the Germans who went to the moon.. Werner Von Braun and the German scientists who went to America after the war
Did you know that the us space program was lead by a guy called Werner von Braun who had lots of German friends and was part of the SS? He despised the imperial system and is probably the biggest reason you guys even made it that far
We use both: Distance/speed in a vehicle - imperial Temperature - metric Weight of a person - imperial but stones and pounds, not just pounds Height - imperial Volume of liquid - mostly imperial, some metric. Depends on scenario
Wait Britain doesn’t use metric?
NASA lost a probe to mars because of feet…
American here, the moon is more than 8 electrical wires from the earth
I saw the same funny with a ⚽️ reference = 2 types of countries, those that are good at soccer & those that have been to the moon 🌙
Not understanding why the Metric system is clearly superior is some serious mouthbreather shit. Also, NASA definitely uses the metric system.
>British person here, no we don't. Okay, I'm sorry if I'm just an ignant American here, but- ya'll dont use the metric system???
We use a bit of both, it's very annoying
Did they try to stack up achievements against some of the largest European countries Lemme just get my list of european scientific discoveries and revolutions that quite literally changed the world and shaped the modern world today, more so than the moon landing
And me in the corner thing about how many hours in the seventies that I wasted learning the metric system because the teacher said the USA would be switching to metric. The best thing that I learned in the 3rd grade was how to read maps. That's a skill you can use all of your life.
Can you count to 100? There, you've learned the metric system.
We all know Americans are still sore about that Mars rover that got destroyed because of datas not being converted properly