Category Archives: Metric History

Making The Milligrade

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition (Extra)

I have to admit that there is only one measurement identified with the metric system that gives me pause.  It’s temperature. Most of the world uses Celsius, and seems fine with it. US detractors surround me, and with boney fingers, point out with derision how compressed the Celsius scale is when compared with Fahrenheit. I object, and defend Celsius, but my heart is not exactly in tune with my defense. Fahrenheit has almost twice the number of graduations over the same temperature interval as does Celsius. My mind wants to embrace Celsius, but pines for some undefined metric mistress of temperature, with whom it would prefer to spend its time.

About a year ago, I started trying to expose myself to mostly Celsius thermometers to see how familiar and comfortable I could become with the scale. In the Winter I find it rather informative to have zero at the freezing point of water. Most of the meteorologists in the US may not say zero degrees Celsius, but almost always describe the number of days above or below freezing. The freezing point is of course assumed to be that of water. I put a Weatherbug on my computer desktop set for Celsius only, and Mike Joy was kind enough to send me an outdoor thermometer from Australia in Celsius only. I really like the way the temperature ranges for human comfort are designated with colors. I mounted the Celsius only thermometer just outside my back door. Below is an image of this thermometer:

Australian Metric Only Thermometer – Click to Enlarge

I’ve slowly become accustomed to temperature in Celsius, and if there was a total switchover to SI, I would be comfortable in a fairly short time I suspect. I seem able to keep C and F separate in my mind. All I would have to do now is drop the F from my world.

An Engineer from the UK, with whom I had worked in the past, visited with his fiancee in December sometime back. It was with pride I pointed out the thermometer Mike had sent me, and in return I received an impish smile. My British friend informed me that his soon-to-be wife could only think in terms of Celsius in Winter and Fahrenheit in Summer. This information hit my mind with the same reaction a cat might have as a stream of water unexpectedly impacts its face. I looked at her in astonishment, with my countenance frozen and contorted. Words failed me. All I could say was: “Really?” I decided this was a very, very unusual data point, and pushed it to the back of my mind—until recently. It resurfaced when Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Howe called for the UK to finish the metrication it had started years ago, but had been halted by the Thatcher Government around 1980. I was amazed in this time of deafening silence about the metric system in the US, that any politician, anywhere would mention it. I read comments by the UK Metric Association members, and one suddenly jumped out. Because the UK made it about half-way in its metrication effort, the weather reports could be in metric or imperial. The British Tabloids, who are not noted for their calm, objective approach to the news, often report Summer temperatures in Fahrenheit and Winter temperatures in Celsius. Thankfully, the UK people explained why. The Fahrenheit temperatures sound really large and give the impression of exaggerated high heat in the Summer. Great copy! The earth’s crust is in danger of melting!  In the Winter, because 0 C starts at 32 F, Celsius exaggerates how how cold Winter temperatures are. Fimbulwinter is upon us! Ragnarök cannot be far behind! Repent!

Ray Bradbury’s Celsius 451 or Milligrade 4510

This is a somewhat, benign example of what happened before worldwide adoption of the metric system. One could use multiple measurement units to fool customers (marks?) into making purchases that favor the merchant when he sells, and also when he buys. The option of a choice between two similar sets of units can easily lead to confusion. For instance, perhaps the most famous novel in the English language with temperature in its title, is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This is the temperature at which paper spontaneously bursts into flame—except it doesn’t. The actual temperature from the technical literature of the time is Celsius 451. Yes, the person who decided upon the title of this book made a Celsius/Fahrenheit mix-up.

If one is old enough, they may recall when Celsius was called Centigrade. The idea was that the temperature from the freezing point (triple point) of water to the boiling point would be divided into 100 parts. Zero Centigrade is the freezing point, and 100 Centigrade is the boiling point of water. If we follow the reasoning of the metric prefixing scheme, it would imply that this scale is obtained by dividing up a temperature interval called the “grade” into 100 parts. The grade would be a normalized range from 0 to 1, which makes a lot of sense.

It has been argued many times on this blog, that the “prefix cluster around unity” is a cluster. Naughtin’s Laws explicitly eschew centi-anything, and use milli instead. After much thought, I believe that the common temperature range which should have been used instead of Celsius, would be the milligrade scale. It would be from 0 to 1000. Like the use of millimeters for Australian building construction, decimal points would never be needed. Only Engineers and scientists might ever need temperatures with a precision smaller than those given by the milligrade scale. There would be no confusing Fahrenheit and Milligrade values. When it’s 100 degrees F, then it’s 378 milligrade—take that British Tabloids! If the reference book Ray Bradbury’s publisher consulted to find the self-ignition temperature of paper had been in Milligrade, there would be no confusing a temperature of 4150 with Fahrenheit or Celsius.  My fellow Engineer Lapin has told me that much of the temperature data on the web, which is meant for professionals, has the temperature in Celsius generally given to a tenth of a degree. All we need to do is move the decimal point, invoke Naughtin’s Laws and presto, a much more usable integer temperature scale for humans exists without decimal points.

If one is a strict adherent to SI definitions, then the actual temperature standard is in Kelvin. Celsius is a derived scale.  The definition of zero Milligrade or Celsius was the triple point of water. It turns out that if you have ice, water and water vapor all present in a sealed triple point of water cell, and then wait for a while, the temperature will stabilize at a very precise value (0.01 C or 0.1 milligrade), which may then be used as a standard. It is called the triple point because you have all three states of matter: liquid, solid, and gas present, and in temperature equilibrium. Celsius is actually derived from the Kelvin scale and the two points of definition are absolute zero and the triple point of water, so the 100 degree boiling point of water is no longer part of the temperature definition.

Farhenheit in a Centegrade World — Click to Enlarge

But imagine the plight of poor Fahrenheit, it is only derived from Kelvin by way of Celsius. When you are a Metric Maven in the United States, you know what it feels like to be Fahrenheit in a Centigrade World, but my new metric temperature mistress, milligrade, would fix that problem for temperature, and provide much needed comfort to my psyche.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

The Metric Populist Revolt That Didn’t Happen

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

On February 12, 2012 CBS News Sunday Morning discussed, in their Almanac segment, the appearance of the first metric road signs in the US, which had occurred thirty years earlier. Charles Osgood states: “Americans content with measuring the old way, were opposed to a conversion, dia-metrically  opposed, you might say.” Then a video clip from the 1970s is shown to validate the assertion. An antagonized man professes: “It’s too damn confusing for a person brought up on the English system.” The formation and later dissolution of the US Metric board is related to the viewer. It is also authoritatively proclaimed that the metric system is based on ten.

The anti-metric Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” Declared in his blog on March 9, 2012:

Americans foiled 1970s-era predictions of a national shift to metric, the collection of
units such as kilograms and meters designed to be easily computed and scaled by factors of 10.

Reading and listening to American Journalists talk about the metric system demonstrates one certainty, they have never used what they are talking about, and have no working knowledge of metric. They sound as knowledgeable an average American citizen lecturing an Englishman about cricket. The everyday metric units generally used are separated by a factor of 1000, not ten. In everyday life you will almost never encounter anything more than millimeters, meters and kilometers. No, no centimeters—don’t get me started, that’s another blog.

The other notion which has become a proverbial American myth, is that there was a “Metric Populist Revolt” in the 1970s. In order for a populist revolt to occur, one assumes there was mandatory metric legislation, a plan with funding, and the entire society was then compelled to use metric. As this metric mandate was implemented in the 1970s, public spirited citizens gathered with their torches and pitchforks, and fought back the metric invader. Democracy was restored to the Republic and we now live in a metric-free land.

There is just one problem with this narrative, it’s completely fictitious. It’s the sort of narrative Joe Isuzu might have employed. In the 1970s, all of the metric legislation was entirely voluntary. The 1970s legislation had all the impact of a symbolic declaration it was National Macaroni and Cheese day. Without a mandate for change, or availability of metric tools and products, human inertia resists any deviation from our eleventh century Anglo-Saxon barleycorn definitions of weights and measures. We defined a pound as the weight of 7000 barleycorns, and an inch as three barleycorns in a row. Our plastic rulers have fractions instead of decimals and so on. It was all very high tech in the sixteenth century.

There was a US metric board created in the 1970s that had no official power to compel metric usage in the US. But the board’s very existence was deemed unacceptable to a pair of bi-partisan Washington political insiders, and it was disbanded during the Reagan Administration.

Since I first encountered the metric system in my youth, I liked it, and wanted it to become the standard in the United States. Many years passed, and when I found a renewed personal interest in metrication, I wanted to know what happened, or more correctly, why metric didn’t happen. It has been very hard to find out. The complete story is still obscure and difficult to research. This much I do know:

George Washington in his inaugural address asserted that uniform weights and measures were of paramount importance to the United States and would be addressed as quickly as possible. Washington’s aides, and congress let him down through inaction. Bills were offered, tabled, ignored, and met with the indifference. The weights and measures of the US became unwelcome orphans in political discourse.

John Quincy Adams famously examined the US weights and measures question, and like his predecessors deferred the question indefinitely.

Finally, because new imperial replacement standards sent to us by the UK were so flawed we could not use them, Thomas Mendehall had to make a decision the US congress has refused to do for well over a century now. The only standards that were technically acceptable for use, were those provided when the US signed The Treaty of the Meter. In 1878,  The Mendenhall Order of April 5, 1893, became the de facto, un-legislated law which defined all the imperial units in terms of metric ones. John F. Shafroth, of Colorado, began introducing metric system legislation into the House of Representatives around 1895. His bill would have made the metric system the mandatory system of weights and measures for the US. The legislation was not passed, despite a number of attempts. Shafroth continued to urge metric legislation until his death in 1922.

I have thus far found very little history from 1922 until the metric study act of 1968. In 1975 the completely voluntary Metric Conversion Act was signed. There was no plan, no funding, and no vision. Apparently the metric system was expected to organically spring forth, without any effort required. The Metric Conversion Act was amended in 1988 and only punctuated the fact that metric adoption was voluntary—just in case the 1975 Act didn’t make this clear enough. The year 1988 appears to be where the trail goes cold again. Almost no metric legislation appears after that date. One wonders if perhaps the US should apply to the Guinness Book of World Records for a procrastination world record. It’s been 236 years after George Washington’s address on the subject of standardizing weights and measures. After this long without inaction It seems we should be in the running for some kind of record.

While ninety five percent of the worlds population converted to metric long ago, The United States only offered non-binding, vacuous legislation. It is easy to have a successful revolt against non-existent, feckless metric system legislation. You can do it from your living room while asleep in an easy chair. The absence of public leadership by congress and the executive branch, means we all now pay an invisible “Imperial System” tax, of around $16.00 per day per person. Because US citizens don’t realize the costs of the current non-system, it neuters public objection, and encourages the status quo. The most successful parasite, is one who’s existence is not perceived by its host. Taxation without metrication is tyranny!

The myth of the metric populist revolt, is used by people who didn’t even want to try changing over to metric, to explain why there is no use bothering to try now. We tried mightily! they assert, there was a metric revolt! It was horrible!, the nation was torn apart, we can’t even talk about it again! Democracy prevailed. We the people decided, and we are not doing it! This pernicious myth continues to reverberate in our newspapers, magazines, television and blogs. It short circuits discussion, and provides a convenient and illegitimate cover for why we are different, and can never become metric, like the rest of the world did long ago. Other countries of the world reap the financial and intellectual benefits of metrication. We just keep adding the collective cost to our tab–no worries–it will never come due—and so far we haven’t been forced to sober up—and face our metric hangover.. Will we ever?

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.