Why in the World has America NOT Switched to the Metric System?

welcome to Papa's Workshop one of the questions that I get asked all the time is why does the United States still maintain the Imperial measuring system and the system that I typically use putting out all the time so today I actually want to answer that question on why the U.S one of the few countries in the entire world has not switched to the metric system now the first thing that I want to ask is can you name the three countries in the world that still use the imperial system United States is one so you only have to come up with two other countries in the entire world they still use the imperial system leave me a comment down below and let's see what type of response that we get oh and by the way just so that you know one of the three countries is not the United Kingdom because in the 60s they decided to dump their old system and convert over to the metric system why they wanted to be similar and join in with the rest of the European countries to be used in the metric system so count that one out you still have two countries in the world that are used in a metric let's see if you can name them so to answer the question as to why we use the imperial system here you have to go back to the 1700s and actually in 1790 the French had a problem and they wanted to be able to streamline their Commerce clean up the fraud that was going on and they really did not have a good system of measurements so they're the ones that actually developed the metric system now the French scientists were extremely intelligent and what they wanted to do is base this system on the Earth's circumference which is a well-known figure back in that time period so what they did is they took a longitudinal line that went from the northern to the southern portion of France and used that measurement and divided it equally into the segments and those segments ended up becoming the meter now everything was based on this decimal system which is the base 10 system which made it very convenient and easy to be able to convert the numbers based on that one meter and very quickly throughout the world this became the standard and was adopted by many other countries unfortunately when it came time for the United States to consider it they said no this came from France we're not interested and they held to the system that they currently had which was the imperial system however the rest of the world or most of the Nations began to join on and the International Community started using the metric system as it became known now it does get even more interesting because in the United States in that uh 1700s when different countries throughout the world were beginning to adopt the metric system the United States actually proposed in Congress to be able to adapt to this system as well and I said a moment ago they said no it's part of France so we're not going to do it well what really happened there was a little bit more in detail all of the industrious including the labor unions at the time they had already set up their factories using the imperial system and they said hey guys it's going to cost too much money to be able to convert everything over into the metric and with their lobbying power they were successful at having Congress say no we're not switching to the metric system now this little exercise in Congress continued through the 19th and even into the 20th century one of the things that I want to emphasize is that the metric system is creeping into the United States whether people want it or not and here's what I mean if you go to the grocery store for an example you're going to see many different examples if you go down the soft drink aisle you're going to find two liters of soft drink you're not going to find a half gallon but yet you go over to the aisle where they sell the milk and you're going to buy the milk by the gallon kind of funny brother strange but then you look at the ingredients and the qualities on the different boxes guess what you're going to see both you'll see the ounces cups those types of measurements as well as the milliliters liters or whatever it happens to be and in some cases it may be the grams but all said and done the metric system is definitely creeping in to our groceries another area that has creeped into our world is in the world of medicine for the most part our science uh community and our medical community have all switched to the metric system so if you take medicine for an example you're going to get milliliters or grams you're not going to get ounces it's just not going to happen everything is set up for the milliliters using the metric system and you're going to find that throughout many different things another example is products that we import into this country and unfortunately guys we import a lot of stuff into this country well those items are made using the metric system so all the screws bolts nuts everything that goes into making those products guess what they're metric thus that's one of the main reasons you have to have two sets of tools hopefully one day our Congress will get their act together and vote in the actual conversion for the metric system for the United States and get us on board with the rest of the International Community now there was another big attempt to be able to change the United States over into the metric system and that was back in around 1975 if I remember correctly and a bill was proposed in Congress to be able to do just that well at the time there were some rumors out there that the president said no where that's just not American enough for us well that theory really wasn't true but what was true is that the Congress did put forth a bill and passed a bill that basically said if you want to change you can if you don't want to change that's okay too which made it just simply a voluntary system well as you might expect most of the people in this country did not change and that's part of the reason why we still teach the imperial system in the school today but one of the things that it does cause you to do is have two sets of tools you have to have a set of tools for the imperial system with all those fractions and you have to have a set of tools for more than battery system now that also includes your socket sets your wrenches your Allen wrenches and all the things in between to be able to successfully work on the different equipment that you have now there is one wrench that is universal that works really well for both metric and for the imperial system and that's this one right here this is an adjustable wrench but that doesn't cure all the problems that you may have but it definitely comes in handy when you are missing that one particular wrench that you need whether it's the Imperial or the metric so as you can see in my shop I have all the sockets divided up where there are quarter inch or 3 8 or half inch but then I have them further divided by either the US measurement or the imperial system or the metric system two sets of wrenches on the next sheet I have these wrenches also and this is another set of wrenches that I have where one set is metric and one set is the Imperial even the alarm ranges itself or the hex wrenches ones the U.S and one is the metric system again two of everything and one of the wrenches that I use probably most common are these wrenches right here and yes they are all metric if you look at this side of the cabinet again I have all of the metric as well as the US wrenches so I have a complete double set again so that I can work on any of the different projects that I have I wish quite frankly that the United States had adopted back in 1975 the actual metric system and I wouldn't have to have a double set of wrenches like this throughout my whole entire shop but here's another problem is that our schools Tails taste the imperial system do they really teach the metric system sorry guys they really don't teach the metric system in our schools even today now the other thing that I want to show you is just a simple School ruler that you're going to find in any of the different Elementary and secondary schools in the United States and on one side you will have the inches shown and then on the other side you're going to have the metrics but unfortunately the metric system with these millimeters and centimeters really don't get used very often they may have one small unit that they teach and then it's pretty much forgotten about so for the most part they only use the inches on this side and this other side down here people look at it and say gee what is that because they really don't understand it they have taken it one step further and even on a school protractor you're going to have the interest down at the bottom and one little section there of the centimeters and the millimeters but again quite frankly guys it's really not used and for years and years our tape measures look like this they had the inches on each side now in this case you have the sixteenths of an inch down here on this side and then on this side is broken down a little bit further down to the 30 seconds but after you got past the one foot Mark that was gone and the only thing that you had was the inch broken down into the sixteenths of an inch on both sides and again this was pretty much the standard that we had in this country for years and years and years and quite frankly even today if you go into a hardware store and you want to buy a tape measure this is probably what you're going to find now occasionally you can find the tape measures that will have the inches on one side and then they'll have the metric system on the other and broken down into the millimeters and the centimeters but I have to say the majority of the people do not understand what the metric system is and they just quite frankly ignore those numbers on the bottom of that tape measure or for the kids they ignore that bottom row of numbers again that metric system is just simply put out of mind and quite frankly I think that's a shame I think a lot more effort needs to be put into being able to teach both systems and hopefully one day we will convert over into the metric system 100 percent yes I am more familiar with the imperial system I can think of a foot and know how long a foot is I can think of an inch and say yes I can mentally visualize what an inch looks like it's a little bit harder for me to be able to take that one inch and say well that converts over to 25.4 millimeters one of the things that I have said often in my videos is that don't try to mix the systems if you want to build a used metric use metric if you want to use the imperial system then by all means use the imperial system you get into trouble when you're trying to convert it from one measurement to a different unit of measurement and I rarely do that in the shop I will however use the metric system to do very precise measurements on a particular project where otherwise I'm using all Imperial and I just want the accuracy yes I'll do that but I'm not converting between the two systems and then there's another second very important reason that I do not use the metric system throughout the shop all the time and that reason is the vast majority of all of my subscribers are from where you guessed it the United States so if the world Community out there started watching and subscribing to the channel a whole lot more guess what guys I would use the metric system a lot more as well but I will say this in the upcoming videos there will be a lot more different uh metric usages throughout the different videos but I will have to say more than likely you're going to see that old crazy imperial system which is quite frankly based on much of nothing I want to thank you for watching this real short video but I wanted to be able to answer a question that has been nagging people for a long time as to why I still use the imperial system which is that crazy old outdated system that's based on nothing but it's a familiar system as you might expect so if you liked the video please go ahead and give me a thumbs up and don't forget hit that little subscribe button right down there so you won't miss out on the different videos that I'm uploading so until next time I'm going to say bye bye but I can't wait to see in the shop real soon

Channel: Paw Paw’s WorkShop

Views: 5,865

Keywords: inventables, Easel, how to, create, torched flag, CNC for beginners, DIY, april wilkerson, i like to make stuff, steve ramsey, izzy swan, dude perfect, the king of ramdon, 5 minute craft, build something, socket storage, shop orgnization, inkscape, pen turners, Beginner woodworking, jig saw basics, EDC, cabinet building, laser engraving for CNC, wine rack, tiling on the XCarve, Ninja Turtles, shop upgrade blast gates, Electrical circuit, micro and relay switch, Fox Alien

Id: mdhLaap0ekc

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023