Category Archives: Metric System in Popular Culture

Whatever Happened To the Metric System?

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Guest Book Review By Sven

Is the metrication of a nation a technical exercise, or a social problem? Of course it is both, but in practice, one or the other view predominates. This should be recognized as framing all underlying debate. The classic example of a nation that came late to metric, but approached the transition as a technical hiccup, is now among the most successfully metricated: Australia. The nation that briefly flirted with metrication at about the same time, the 1970s, but dropped it on the dubious grounds that it would have required too much penicillin, is The United States of America. The Metric Maven has always sided with Oz, sometimes to the point of testing the patience of long-time readers. Keep this in mind, because it’s crucial to what follows.

A new book, Whatever Happened to the Metric System? How America Kept Its Feet, by John Bemelmans Marciano, ostensibly on the failure of metrication in the US, has us here at TheMetricMaven.com in a quandary. If the subject matter matches the title, then we might be expected to have an opinion. Silence might even be misinterpreted. On the other hand, if the book is something else, we could find ourselves in the position of electrical engineers trying to make sense of a seriously bizarre piece of dilettante sociology.

The book certainly starts off at the right point: the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan gave the coup de grâce to any hope for imminent US metrication, by abolishing the US Metric Board. The Board had been in existence for only seven years, and still represents the sole official attempt to bring US measurement into alignment with the rest of the world. (I can personally attest that it was a time when kids were told by teachers that, ten years out of high school, we would never have to worry about confusing an ounce weight with a fluid ounce again.) But the Board foundered early, for reasons that will not be easily explained to citizens of European democracies. (Long story short: some members of the Board apparently saw their function as more than purely nominal.)

Before exploring this failure, however, Marciano indulges in an extended historical digression: at least twelve of his sixteen chapters. Our first major stop is actually the French Revolution. And I do mean stop: we will be stuck in France from well before the Reign of Terror, and will be hanging around for at least two Napoleons after (numbers I and III, I’m pretty sure — I’ve forgotten if II gets a mention, and frankly it’s not worth checking). The French chapters run from at least three through six and beyond, with chapter two, on the francophile Thomas Jefferson, as a kind of preamble. This makes the French section well over one fourth of the book. Although the book’s title suggests a specific focus on the failure of the US, alone among the nations, to metricate, the bulk of the book takes place elsewhere, and has only tenuous relevance to the US failure. The book seems to be intended more as a capsule history of the metric system. And if this is indeed the intention, then there is a grave problem. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, there is a dog that didn’t bark in the night: the complete absence of John Wilkins (1614-1672).

Ten years ago, a book on the history of the metric system might have been excused for not mentioning John Wilkins, and parroting the conventional wisdom that the metric system sprang fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, out of revolutionary France. But it is now known, largely from the research of Pat Naughtin, that the idea of systematized measures, divorced from any artifact, had been around long before: at least one hundred twenty years before the Revolution. In 1668 Wilkins published An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, which included a proposal for an integrated system of linear, volume, and weight measures. It was not an isolated effort. William Brouncker, and the far better known Christian Huygens, collaborated. But the man who came up with the technological device that made the system possible, the “seconds pendulum,” may have been Christopher Wren, not primarily a scientist (or “natural philosopher”), but the architect of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral. Wilkins’ book was widely read well into the 1800s, and the units for length, volume, and weight it advocated were remarkably close to those later arrived at by the French by more dubious means.

Marciano is aware of such devices as the seconds pendulum, and of Jefferson’s disgust at the French rejection of them, which makes his silence on John Wilkins even more puzzling. The same silence, incidentally, is found in Marcus du Sautoy’s recent BBC documentary, Precision: The Measure of All Things. Du Sautoy also makes the astonishing claim that the French insistence on basing the meter on the Paris meridian was somehow an act of cooperative internationalism. Marciano doesn’t go this far, and seems to understand that their seven-year exercise in trigonometry was ultimately pointless, but persists in calling this nationalistic reboot or retread of some very old ideas an act of invention. He also discusses problems with the seconds pendulum that were apparent at the time, but which could have been compensated fairly readily. (A seven-year study of the behavior of pendulums in various parts of the world would also have provided a lot of information on the precise shape of the earth.)

The author’s Tilt-A-Whirl approach to history is engaging, his chapters on the French Revolution more fun than a free ride in a tumbrel, but perhaps not by much. It’s actually hard to find much in the book that has anything to do with SI, today’s metric system, or even measurement per se, except by implication — possibly invidious. There are long sections devoted to such things as English spelling reform: Noah Webster’s partially successful efforts to redefine American English; and the completely unsuccessful attempts of such disparate characters as the rather pathetic Melvil Dewey (of Dewey Decimal fame), and Teddy Roosevelt. The efforts of advocates of artificially constructed languages, Esperanto, and its less-known predecessor Volapük, are detailed. One entire chapter is devoted to the development of standard time; and another is on attempts to rationalize the calendar, which continued through the 1920s. Cranky figures take the front row, including extended discussions of perhaps the greatest of nineteenth-century crackpots, Charles Piazzi Smyth, and his obsession with the Great Pyramid. Yet another chapter is given over to a man who, although no crank, is no more than a footnote in metric history: John Quincy Adams and his pointless and unreadable Report on Weights and Measures.

A great deal of the book concerns something that most people today wouldn’t think of as measured at all: money. This is justified on the grounds that “In the late eighteenth century, coinage was not only a part of weights and measures, it was the most vital part, and had been for thousands of years.” This is arguable (although some of us might point out there was an awful lot of measurement-based engineering going on in the ancient world, and when buildings and aqueducts fail, people die). But even granting this, money today is counted rather than measured: a very different thing. Neither SI, nor any of its several predecessors has a monetary unit. This doesn’t mean, however, that we aren’t going to be spending some time in Bretton Woods.

Eccentrics and guru-like figures continue to dominate in the “contemporary” section, from about 1970 onward (essentially just the last three chapters). Two of these are introduced in chapter one: Stewart Brand, described as a “libertarian prototechie,” and Tom Wolfe, a “literary icon in a white suit.” Brand, editor of The Whole Earth Catalog in its myriad forms (all of them aging ungracefully, or thankfully forgotten) specialized in demagoguery by using metric system and nuclear power in the same sentence on all occasions. Wolfe then apparently dealt metric a crushing blow when he judged a “Most Beautiful Foot” contest at a party called a “Foot Ball.” Yet another oddity: the editor of the American Journal of Physics (actually a teaching journal) is cited, apparently with approval, for using such units as the “jelly doughnut” (106 joules) in an attempt to make science more understandable. (Last time I looked, the joule was an SI unit, and 106 was the prefix mega-. I like reporting food energy in megajoules, and I’m completely on board with making science understandable. I’m just not sure rebranding the megajoule as a jelly doughnut is the best way to do this.) The book also degenerates into reporting anti-metric t-shirt slogans and schoolyard taunts of the era.

Does the book address any technical issues at all? Very few, but one comes up at least twice, attributed to Tom Wolfe: “NASA had gone to the moon on inches and pounds and had never considered any other system.” Not true, of course. The computers aboard the Apollo spacecraft performed all calculations in metric. Only the displays were in archaic units. Considering the low speed of those early computers, that unit conversion must have been a significant extra computational load. But it is true that NASA was and is hostile to metric.

The author is under the curious impression that NASA learned a lesson from the Mars Climate Orbiter: “America has gone metric where it has been useful to do so. Thankfully, this now includes space travel.” Sorry, but again no. Official policy to the contrary, NASA and its supporting industries are as intransigent as ever. For as long as the Space Shuttle was in service, NASA baulked at any attempt at metrication, on the grounds that the conversion of drawings would have been too expensive. Now the Shuttle is retired, and the US has no manned spacecraft. American astronauts thumb rides on Russian spacecraft. NASA has as near a clean slate as it will ever have. But the contract for Orion, the manned spacecraft intended to replace the Shuttle, was awarded to Lockheed Martin, at least in part because Lockmart specified in its proposal that archaic units would be used whenever possible.

And our poster child for rational, democratic metrication? Australia gets one mention, and only to say that it had found metrication a “relatively straightforward project.” Come to think of it, there is another dog that didn’t bark lurking here. The Australian experience was that metrication costs were so low they were instantly swallowed up in the benefits. Considering how money-oriented this author is, it’s strange he never considers such terms as one-time costs, or ongoing benefits.

The book ends on a weirdly inverted triumphalist note. In fact, the entire book is a kind of celebration of technical and economic eclipse as social triumph. When I picked it up, I had in mind a map of a metric world with one obvious, US-shaped black hole in it, and the question “What happened?” Now that I’ve put the book down, I still have the same question.

Related essays:

John and the Argot-nauts

Bonfire of The Vanity Units

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 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 Barleycorn Hillbillies

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

One of the difficult aspects of embracing metric to the fullest extent possible, in the US, by an individual, ok–by individual I mean your humble Metric Maven, is the embarrassment one feels as they experience everyday life in a non-metric country. Each night when I watch the local weather; I see weather maps that have predicted snowfall in inches, which metamorphize into feet. Strangely, the Ye Olde English meteorological changelings never become yards. One could easily use millimeters and have a single unit for rain and snow. Meters for meteorologists would be optional. Given the choice between visualizing 0.2″ and 5 mm, I’ll take the millimeters.

The basis for the current muddle of units in the US goes back to the humble barleycorn. There are three barleycorns to an inch. In other words, the fundamental unit of measurement, the original basis for all the inches, feet, yards, miles and so on is the humble barleycorn. Other countries used the width of a thumb as the “basis” for an inch, but not the Anglo-Saxons. To this day American shoe sizes are derived from the barleycorn. This means that 36 barleycorns equal one foot. Of course the fact that the average length of an actual male human foot is around 10.35 inches (with a 0.47 inch standard deviation) is not a surprise. Behind the relationships between all the archaic units of length used in the US, is a series of shotgun weddings from the past. One of these shotgun weddings was the mile. It was actually a Roman unit that was 5000 feet, but a shotgun wedding with an English furlong produced 5280 feet.

Many wax poetic about the heritage and richness of these forcibly related units. I see nothing poetic at all. I see nothing but the prosaic utterances of Barleycorn Hillbillies. Try for just a moment to imagine you grew up with a smooth continuous measurement system (i.e. SI). 1000 mm is a meter. 1000 meters is a kilometer. The prefixes are shorthand for how many meters are under discussion, or how many times it has been divided—by one thousand. The meter is the only fundamental distance base! The meter is also the product of the best metrological methods available. Suppose this person, who knows only metric, then hears one American woman tell another: “My goodness Alice, my little Johnny grew a foot.”  Now the person from a metric country could be expected to recoil at such a statement. Perhaps the poor boy had grown up near a nuclear waste site, which caused a new appendage to grow. Worst of all, the woman seemed to be proud of it. Imagining further, that this metric person had never heard of a “measurement unit” called a foot, how would it sound after she was told?  My expectation is that to a metric person, it would sound like Johnny’s mother was a member of the most unsophisticated culture on this planet. A foot as a measurement unit?—hilarious and so precious that the Barleycorn Hillbillies would make up such a quaint and absurd fundamental  unit, which is different for every person. This is a ridiculous situation. That’s why I finally have to put my foot down over this issue.

After immersing myself in metric, here is how I’m beginning to react to my fellow citizens describing the world with the dead set of medieval units in everyday use: The units we use are metaphorically similar to zombies from Night of the Living Dead. They are corpses that wander our culture eating our brains. Don’t believe me? How about answering this question: “How many feet in half a mile?” The units just ate your brain. I used a factor of one-half as I’m constantly told that we have a system based on two, a “binary system.” A most annoying fact is that the persons asserting this truism apparently have no concept of how completely incorrect it is. (3 barleycorns = 1 inch, 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, 5 1/2 yards = 1 rod, 40 rods = 1 furlong, 8 furlongs = 1 mile, there is no two anywhere that I can see). So how many meters are in 1/2 kilometer?—why 500 meters of course. I’m sure you’re still working on cyphering that there are 2640 feet in 1/2 mile. Perhaps Jethro Bodine could give you a hand with that. Ok, feet weren’t fair? I didn’t use a unit which is close to a meter?  How about telling me how many yards are in 1/2 mile? I doubt 880 yards immediately rolled off your tongue.

What’s even more fun is that certain American drinking establishments offer “a yard of beer,” or a half-yard if you’re not that thirsty. Yes I know it’s traditionally called a “yard of ale” in the country which provided the sourdough starter for our dead units. Seriously, in the era of cell phones, GPS satellites and such, we are offered a three dimensional volume of beer, which is described as a one dimensional length? I hear rumors that metric countries have a meter of ale, heaven help us, Jethro has arrived in the building.

The real fun begins with a US gallon. The English gallon was defined as the volume of eight pounds of wheat. So we have volume defined in terms of a compressible mass. Don’t forget 7000 wheat grains make a pound. And we all know that four quarts make a gallon, and two pints make a quart, but we often cook with cups. So how many teaspoons are in a cup and how many tablespoons are in a gallon? There are 1000 mL to a liter, and that’s really all you need to use metric. The metric system just seems too modern I guess—like a “cement pond” poured with yards of cement—not ale. When I watch any cooking program, I’m immediately reminded I live in the land of The Barleycorn Hillbillies. It’s both frustrating and embarrassing.

So why did I call the set of units employed in the US as “dead?”  It’s simple, they are. You might not have noticed, but the world has changed a lot since the 17th century. By the end of the 19th century there were about 30 million horses in the US—about one for every four people. Estimates indicate that about one-third of the nations farmland was required to produce horse feed.  Meanwhile in the 21st century, I haven’t needed a horse for transportation or plowing–at all. But the unit used to describe the energy produced by an internal combustion engine, in the land of the Barleycorn Hillbillies, is “horse power.” I am at a loss why we don’t have divisions into “pony power,” “mule power,” and for fine measurement “hamster power.” Power is measured in watts, which is a joule per second, which is of course defined by the metric system (SI).

Years ago, a friend of mine owned a Plymouth Road Runner. It had a 383 cubic inch engine, which probably produced about 415 horsepower. Now I tell you this information because you are certainly intimately familiar with horses, and interact with them on a daily basis?—right?—you don’t? Well then, why would you object to the internal combustion engine described as having 309 kilowatts under the hood? Too modern?—not enough Mr. Ed for you?

The current set of US units are so dead, they cannot describe something that first became useful in the 19th Century, completely transformed the 20th, and is taken for granted in the 21st. Without it there would be no DNA testing, photocopying, cell phones. GPS or other modern creations. It was proudly featured in the 1893 Colombian Exposition, and today essentially everyone in the US has it. It is electricity. No matter how many barleycorns you lay end to end, you will never make it to a standard coulomb, kilowatt, volt or ampere.

The idea of living without electricity is anathema to most, yet because our measurement “system” has been dead for well over 200 years, we cannot use it to describe perhaps the most important physical phenomenon of the last 200 years. So when purchasing a hybrid car like a Prius, should it have two values? Horsepower for the internal combustion engine and watts for the electric motor?  No, The Barleycorn Hillbillies won’t stand for it. Here is the copy I found that describes the Prius, it has “A 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine and electric motor produce a combined total output of 134 horsepower.” In America, it’s a PigFish car. Would it really cause the (metric) Statue of Liberty to collapse if it read that the Prius has: “A 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine and electric motor produce a combined total output of 100 kilowatts.” Strange that 134 horsepower is almost exactly 100 kilowatts, it’s like it had been designed that way! Kilowatts can be used to describe a gasoline engine or an electric motor equally. Australians manage to do it for cars with internal combustion engines:

Australian Car Specifiation for Volvo — Courtesy of Mike Joy

The lack of metric in the US precludes our citizens from directly describing the modern world. I find it all as backward as describing how well an aircraft can carry cargo using units called broomsticks and kilowitches. Our Ye Olde English units are suited to a pre-industrial and pre-scientific age, not to the current one. We cannot describe and understand the big problems which confront us, if we choose to hide behind meaningless units, and remain Barleycorn Hillbillies. Rather than continue living in the past, we should embrace the measurement system that is constantly being refined and lives, which is the metric system.

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 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.