What is common to the following three countries: USA, Myanmar and Brunei?
Hint: They are the only countries in the world, which have one thing in common. You know where USA is, right? Can you locate on the map where Myanmar and Brunei are? Hey, they share the same value with us!
Answer: They use the American System of Units (ASU). We used to call it British System of Units. But the UK switched to SI (System International- metric) more than 20 years ago; so I renamed it ASU. The selling of a yardstick in Britain constitutes a crime today. Other English speaking countries have switched to SI as well. Now, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are using SI.
Why metric? Do you how many ft are equivalent to 1 mile? I found that very few people know it. How about this: How many inches are equivalent to 1 mile? Even those few who can answer the first question will need a calculator to answer the second question. Answer: 1 mile = 5280 ft and 1 mile = 63360 inches.
Similar questions in Germany, France, UK, Japan, Russia and the rest of the world except for the big three (?) are: how many meters are in 1 km? How many cm are in 1 km? Even an elementary school kid can answer. 1 km = 1000 m and 1 km =100000 cm.
SI is consistently based on a multiple of 10. Kilo is simply a thousand and mega is 1 million as most American kids know nowadays because of kilo byte and megabyte used in computers. Centi is 1/10. ASU is incoherent or inconsistent in itself. Sometimes it is based on 12, some other time 16 or 3 or 5280 or whatever.
How many cubic ft constitute 1 gallon? How many cubic inches constitute 1 gallon, then? How many lb does 1 gallon of water weigh? How many lb does 1 cubit ft weigh? How many oz does 1 cubic ft weigh? In SI this kind question is very easy to answer. One liter = 1000 cc (= 1000 cubic cm). 1 cubic m. = 100X100X100 cubic cm = 1 million cubic cm. = 1000 liter. 1 liter of water weighs 1 kg and 1 cc weighs 1 g. In addition water boils at 100 deg C and freezes at 0 deg C vs 212 deg F and 32 deg F, respectively, in ASU.
Vital statistics of a woman in metric system is like 98-64-96. It sounds like an Amazon to an American but 36-24-35 sounds like midget contest or kids porno to SI users. It is a matter of getting used in this kind situation. But no matter how long you are used to ASU, it is still very difficult to switch from ft to inch, or lb to oz. Quite bit of calculation is necessary because they are not based on ten. I have been a professor of engineering for a long time. Electrical engineers have always used SI. Mechanical engineers used ASU long time ago but they are now using both SI and ASU in school. However, automotive and aerospace industries switched to SI about 10 years ago. You need metric tools to fix a car, domestic as well as import nowadays. Those manufacturers are forced to use SI in house and ASU for customers because the general public in the U.S. are so slow to adopt SI.
It is interesting to note that The U.S. National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) keeps a 1 Kg standard mass, a close duplicate of the original kept at the Bureau Internationale de lHeure near Paris in France. This is the only standard mass based on which all legal weights (mass) in the U.S. are based on. On the other hand, they NIST has no such thing as a standard bound. One pound of mass (weight) is defined as 0.45359237 kg.
The meter was originally defined by a fraction of the length of the equator but is now redefined by the distance traveled by light in vacuum in 3.335641 X 10^-9 seconds, one second is defined by the time elapsed during 9192631770 periods of the radiation emitted between two levels of the fundamental state of cecium-133. Too complicated, foot is easier? Not quite. Actually, 1 foot is defined by 0.30480060 meters, not directly by anything else. These definitions of weight and length are legally valid when any legal dispute arrises.
Once SI was called conspiracy of communismEby some people. Sure, Russians use it and Poles use it. But communists are a small minority in those countries today. Besides, everyone else, except for Americans and people of Brunei and Myanmar, is using SI. You dont have to go very far. Just crossing the border north or south, you have to use km and liter. We are just dragging our feet but its inevitable to have to completely switch to SI. The faster, the better.
