- We struggle with units of measurement all the time on our channel and it's something that we
get a lot of comments about. - [Woman] Pro tip: use the metric system. - [Man] Why don't you
use the metric system man, so annoying. - [Woman] Metric please. - [Man] Just use the
(bleeped out) metric system, for god's sake - We interview scientists,
engineers, and other researchers but they live in a metric world. We then have to turn
around and make a video but around half of our
audience is American. So if we say something in
centimeters or kilograms it could trip up a lot of our viewers. We've tried going back and forth. We should make an executive decision about using Fahrenheit or celsius. Um, its like three, isn't
it three something feet? We should know this. We've put conversions
in parentheses on screen but it's a mess and we want to know why. Almost everyone on the
planet uses the metric system but why has the United States held out? Well, there are a ton of
reasons both big and small but here are three reasons that we've never considered before. Reason number one: US measures are dumb but they make sense. Officially, the United
States uses a system known as the US customary measures. It's adapted from the imperial system that we inherited from
our British forefathers and we've clung to their
feet and ounces ever since. The UK is now officially metric-based but in practice, imperial units are sticking around there, too. - I'm in such a quandary. I wake up in kilograms,
I go to bed in ounces. I, you know, do I measure
things by meters or feet? I don't know, it's actually,
no it's fine, it's fine. - That's James Vincent,
a reporter for The Verge. - James lives in the UK but writes for a US-based publication. So, he's pretty familiar
with the headaches caused by juggling two systems of measurement. - I put it along as a prop but now I haven't had
a chance to use it yet. - James says feet and
ounces might be clunky but the US and the UK haven't ditched them because they just work. - A foot, for example, is
more relatable than a meter which was originally
defined as one ten-millionth the distance from the
equator to the North Pole. A foot is what it sounds like. An inch is about the
width of an adult thumb. If you have a body, you
can use these measures. - Some people argue and I
think there's the decent case to be made that they
are sort of on a human scale. - And while many European
countries ditched their old measures because they
were irregular or confusing, America's units were just more consistent right from the get-go. US has started on a stronger footing than many European countries did. They have had good, consistent
weights and measures and consistency matters far more than what unit you're actually using. - The point is, the US
system has always been a little more accessible than metric. Sure, stacking up 12 thumb
widths to make a foot that's still kind of weird but it's not so weird that
we're clambering to change it. Reason number two: Americans
can't be bothered to switch. Adopting the metric
system is something that a majority of Americans
would have to get behind. There'd need to be a popular movement and very recently, one man
tried to make that happen. ("Yankee Doodle") We took a trip to Rhode Island
to talk to Lincoln Chafee. He's a former senator,
Rhode Island governor, and presidential candidate in 2016. And he had a grand vision
for taking the US metric. - I think America should
be behaving a little more along with the other civilized countries and it just makes sense when
our two closest countries, Mexico and Canada, both have metric so it's an international,
forward-looking way of where America's going
is how I got interested in promoting the metric system. - [Cory] Lincoln ran on his Prosperity through Peace platform which focused less on military spending, and more on infrastructure, education, and generally making friends
with other countries. But he tacked one extra
point onto his platform that seemed pretty fated to backfire. - Earlier, I said let's be bold. Here is a bold embrace
of internationalism. Let's join the rest of
the world and go metric. I just kept saying Stephanie was right and my wife was right. Never should have brought it up. I remember exactly when I
was reading over the speech right near where we're sitting right now and she said don't put
the metric in there. It's gonna be misinterpreted. But I wanted to test. Can America, can we have a conversation about some controversial things? - [Cory] Unfortunately for Lincoln, his test was pretty conclusive. - Cafee said an important
part of his platform is getting the US to finally
adopt the metric system. - [Narrator] Lincoln Cafee, he'll be out of this race in .2 nanoseconds. - [Reporter] Lincoln Chafee's
odds of getting the US to finally embrace the metric system are probably about as low
as Lincoln Chafee's odds of getting to be the next
president of the United States - But my wife was right. It was totally
misinterpreted and ridiculed and mocked and nobody ever asked about any of the other issues. - [Cory] Lincoln withdrew
from the race in 2015. - I have decided to end my
campaign for the president today. - [Cory] And with him went any hope of conversation around metric. Though Lincoln still holds out hope. - Ultimately, people have
an affection for America and it's still there and
we should be building on it instead of driving a
wedge into our differences with countries around the world and metrics is part of it. It's a good symbolic part of it. - The moral of the story,
don't hold your breath for a metric uprising in America. - Almost every nation on Earth has fallen under the yoke of
tyranny, the metric system. - But for what it's worth, we might actually be in the middle of a much sneakier metric takeover. Reason number three: The US
is secretly already metric. The US may not be officially metric, but meters and kilograms
have found their niches. First, US scientists do not
mess around with US measures. - Metric was designed by
scientists and who primarily you know they were annoyed
about inconsistencies within the systems they
were currently using. - [Cory] The metric system
uses standard, consistent prefixes based on powers of ten. So if you know your prefixes,
you can measure a lot or a little of anything
using one base unit. - Whether you are doing
very precise measurements in chemistry or you're looking
at astronomical differences that's where metric is useful because you if you wanna move the unit you just, you know,
move the decimal point. - Industry is largely on
board with metric, as well. In 1988, Congress passed a bill which required federal agencies
to use metric measurements. Another bill in 1992, required
businesses to use metric for consumer goods, too. Ever wonder why your soda can lists both ounces and milliliters? And last but not least,
imperial units are now technically based on metric definitions. An inch is defined as 25.4 millimeters and a pound is .45359237 kilograms. Metric really is everywhere. - You've got the scientific standards at the heart of the scientific community. You've got the companies, they're metric and you might have as we do in the UK, certain examples where
other units are used in day-to-day life but where
it counts, America is metric. - There you have it. The US is one big measurement gray area. We haven't officially switched to metric but we haven't shunned it either. It's a compromise between
science and industry which benefit from metric, citizens who feel no reason to change - Kilograms - And a government that's
trying to keep everyone happy. - Ultimately, there's
only one way that James thinks this story ends. - As you know, the US is already metric essentially it just has
this facade of measures. The thing to do is just
to wait for that facade to slowly crumble away and
that will happen with time. - When that change happens,
you can be sure that we at Verge Science will
accept it with open arms. Until then, please be patient
with us in the comments and don't forget to like
and subscribe, thanks.
