Category Archives: Metric System in Popular Culture

Star Trek: The Metric Voyage

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

It was when Star Trek The Original Series (TOS) was in reruns, that I first noticed its use of metric units. I was very pleased, and assumed they were used exclusively, but then completely disappointed when  one episode was metric and another used imperial and often they mixed both. The 22nd Century was not what I had hoped for, an all metric one. I can only hope the Erlenmeyer flask Spock is holding in this comic book cover is graduated in milliliters.

I began to wonder how much metric usage occurred in Star Trek. To find out, I decided to watch all 79 episodes and keep track of metric and imperial usage. This seemed like a simple task, just write down the units used and tally them up. What I realized, after a while, was that the undertaking  was more nuanced than it appeared on the surface. Sometimes measurement units were used as proverbial metaphors. For instance in Episode 77 – The Savage Curtain:

SCOTT: You’d never know anything had been out of order. I can’t fathom it.

I could not see claiming that Mr Scott had used an imperial measurement in this episode. Scotty was clearly using a metaphor, and fathom in this case is really a verb, and not a noun.

In the same episode, another exchange occurred that caused me interpretive difficulty:

The Savage Curtain Episode 77

KIRK: Yes, if I recall, your Union Army observation balloons were tendered six hundred or so feet high. We’re six hundred and forty three miles above the surface of this planet.

LINCOLN: You can measure great distances that closely?

SPOCK: We do, sir. Six hundred forty three miles, two thousand twenty one feet, two point zero four inches at this moment, using your old-style measurements.

LINCOLN: Bless me.

Did Captain Kirk convert metric units over to imperial for the benefit of President Lincoln? Spock indicated that the Units he used were “old-style,” and therefore implied they were not used in the 22nd Century. The usage of imperial units seemed to be employed only as a courtesy to the 19th century President. Miles, feet and inches with a decimal point?—oh my! One can only hope Spock was thinking to himself: “how utterly devoid of logic the old style system is.” We will also not explore how he could quote a distance to the planet with an accuracy of 1 mm (0.04″).

At the beginning of the episode Mr Spock relates:

SPOCK: An area of approximately one thousand square kilometers. It measures completely Earth-like.

Given the “weight” of the evidence, I judge The Savage Curtain to be an “all metric” episode, despite the appearance of imperial units. In one case as metaphor, and in the other, as a convenience to “President Lincoln.”

Another difficulty, was that in many episodes, temperature was quoted in degrees without specifying Fahrenheit or Celsius. Often the logical choice of unit could be inferred from context, but not always. In Episode 4 – The Naked Time one cannot be certain which are being used:

UHURA [OC]: Entering upper stratosphere, Captain. Skin temperature now twenty one hundred seventy degrees.

There are also units quoted in Star Trek episodes that are no longer in use. The Angstrom (100 picometers) is mentioned in Episode 16 – The Galileo Seven. In Episode 31 — Who Mourns for Adonais? we have:

SCOTT: External pressure building up, Captain. Eight hundred GSC and climbing.

GSC is grams-force/square centimeter, which was part of the old gram-centimeter-seconds system proposed by the British. It is no longer used. Grams-force is strictly forbidden in The International System of Units (SI).  Grams are mass. So does it count as a metric episode?—the units are metric even if the system isn’t SI.

The First Season had 29 episodes, here’s the measurement breakout:

Imperial Units 13
Imperial and Metric Units 5
Metric 0
No Measurement Units 7
Indeterminate 4

Imperial units completely dominated, there was not a single episode in Season One that had only metric units.

The Second Season had 26 episodes, here’s the measurement breakout:

Imperial Units 5
Imperial and Metric Units 8
Metric 8
No Measurement Units 5
Indeterminate 0

Metric usage finally increased, and eight all-metric episodes occurred. The number of “all imperial unit” episodes decreased, but the “imperial and metric” episodes unfortunately increased.  Still the Star Trek future was becoming more metric.

The Third Season had 24 Episodes, Here’s the measurement breakout:

Imperial Units 2
Imperial and Metric Units 3
Metric 8
No Measurement Units 11
Indeterminate 0

Metric has not increased, but the number of imperial episodes decreased. Unfortunately eleven episodes had no measurement units at all.

The Third season finally explicitly used metric temperature. In Episode 72 — That Which Survives we encounter this dialog:

KIRK: My phaser didn’t cut through it.
MCCOY: Whatever it is, it has a mighty high melting point.
KIRK: Eight thousand degrees centigrade. It looks like igneous rock, but infinitely denser.

Well, it’s centigrade instead of Celsius, but at least there was not a complete metric shut-out concerning temperature. Fortunately SI enforced Naughtin’s Fourth Law and eschewed a name with centi as a prefix, but there are still 100 graduations.. Perhaps SI should have created milligrade, but that’s another blog.

The First Star Trek Episode — The Man Trap was all imperial, but the last, Episode 79 — Turnabout Intruder was all metric, so there may be some hope for the future.

Dual Spocks and Dual Scales, both bad

I may be experiencing false hope however. I have concerns that even in the 22nd Century we might still have imperial units around. I think I know why it’s possible this could happen. It is because of Naughtin’s First Law which states that Dual-Scale Instruments are Evil. This law appears to be constantly violated in Star Trek. It’s clear from the program, that Spock can apparently set his sensor for miles and/or kilometers when measuring. He schizophrenically changes his mind from week to week. Not very Vulcan if you ask me. It was Pat Naughtin that noted, with surprise, that the use of dual unit measurement devices delays metric implementation by at least hundreds of years, and probably indefinitely.  The Star Trek world appears consistent with Pat Naughtin’s assertion. I can only hope it’s not a portent for us in the future.

Miranda in her metric sensor dress

In Episode 60 — Is There In Truth No Beauty?, we see an example of a violation of Naugtin’s 3rd Law, Don’t Change Units in Midstream and Naughtin’s 4th Law, No centimeters. Here’s the dialog after Kirk finds out Miranda is blind and uses a sensor net to observe the world:

MIRANDA: Pity, which I hate. Do you think you can gather more information with your eyes than I can with my sensors? I could play tennis with you, Captain Kirk. I might even beat you. I am standing exactly one meter, four centimeters from the door. Can you judge distance that accurately? I can even tell you how fast your heart is beating.

One should only use millimeters, meters, or kilometers with no mixing. What I mean is, don’t use metric like imperial, where a distance might be described with 5 meters, 35 centimeters and 2 millimeters. It just defeats the utility of metric adoption and complicates measurement for no reason.  It would be best if Miranda said she was 1040 millimeters from the door, or 1.04 meters.

Star Trek has predicted many technical innovations which have been realized since the 1960s. The communicator was the original flip phone. Electronic clipboards could be seen as early Ipads or Blackberrys. Flat screen monitors were everywhere. The wireless earpieces, Uhura, Spock, Chekhov, and others  used are so similar to modern Bluetooth type earpieces, that the first time I saw one in a coffee house, I was not sure if it was real or a “fashion statement” of some kind. Video conferences with Star Fleet command, Klingons, Romulans, and aliens were ubiquitous, and also are today for those who use Skype and other teleconferencing methods. Doors which sense your approach, and open automatically were novel in the 1960s, now they exist at the entrance of most grocery stores.

I deeply hope Star Trek is as wrong about future of the metric system in the 22nd Century, as they were at predicting we would still be using magnetic tape. The best way to intervene in the culture of the 22nd Century is to switch the US to metric in the 21st—with actual mandatory weights and measures legislation.

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 Football Game

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By The Metric Maven

Happy Metric Day everyone.

On September 17, 1977 the only known NCAA metric football game in America took place between St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges in Northfield Minnesota at Laird Stadium.

Metric Football Game Program Cover — Click to Enlarge

The game was proposed by Jerry Mohrig, a Chemistry Professor at Carleton College. This was precipitated by Jerry’s son, who noticed that sports such as swimming and track were going metric–perhaps a metric football game might be good.  The NCAA had to grant permission for the game to take place–and did—after working out how to convert the statistics back to imperial. The major concern was that with a longer field, it was possible to have a runback for a touchdown that was longer than a non-metric field. The field was 100 meters long by 50 meters wide with 10 meter end zones.

The game program had the weights of the players in kilograms and their height in (archaic) centimeters.

The Metric Football Game Program Back Cover — Click to enlarge

Almost 10,000 people showed up to watch the Metric Football game. The game was broadcast on KYMN radio with metric color commentary by Dan Freeman. The announcers were filled with angst about how calling the game was going to be a complete horror—impossible! How would they constantly convert! It was a piece of cake, the numbers were just meters instead of yards, there was no reason to convert anything. By halftime their fears had vanished and the commentators were completely comfortable.

During halftime, special guests included General Ulysses S. Gram, skier Jean-Claude Kilo and baseball legend Harmon Kilogram. The half-time show featured Misty Meters and her Hectoliters.”

Existing pictures from the game show a female fan with a tee shirt that says “Drop back ten meters and punt!” Another photo from the contest shows a running back crossing the 10 meter line with no one to tackle him in sight. The expanded width and length of the football field really made the game more dynamic according to one of those involved.

Unfortunately it was a 43-0 defeat for Carleton. St. Olaf gained 302 meters in “meterage” Carleton had 106 meters in total offense.

The game was, despite the lopsided score, embraced by the students and increased moral during a losing football season. The director of men’s athletics at Carleton, Jack Thurnblad stated: “The students just went bananas over it.” he continued “It’s the only time I can remember in my 36 years at Carleton that students had bonfires before the game. They were really into this.”

The game received national coverage in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated. Carlton deployed Cheer-Liters to maintain team spirit during the game. The Carleton students saw themselves as making history.

The good people of Carleton even contemplated playing a “Liter Bowl” each year as the game had been so enjoyable.

The two teams are crosstown rivals and play each year for a “Goatrophy.” This allowed the winner to symbolically “get the goat” of the loser. But unfortunately, an annual Liter Bowl was never to be.

Carlton Football Roster

When Chemistry Professor Jerry Mohrig was asked in 2008 why we never became metric, even though the conversion push had begun in the late 1970s, his reply was interesting: “… that changed very quickly after the election of 1980 and all of a sudden it wasn’t American to become metric and we stopped talking about it.” Another participant described that September afternoon as a charming Norman Rockwell type of day, that could only take place in small town America, and not in a big city. The participants found The Metric Football Game to be an inspiring occasion. Two rival schools were able to work together to host the one and only metric football game ever held in the United States. Metric had united the rivals rather than creating cultural fissures. If only our country had followed their example.

St. Olaf Football Roster

The Carleton–St. Olaf metric game inspired me to imagine how an NFL game might unfold. Clearly no American would put up with the replacement of the single syllable word yard, with the two syllable word meter. But I know Americans, they would find a shorter designation. I can almost hear the ghost of Howard Cosell, calling a metric football game: “He’s out of bounds at the 21 m line…oh my he’s knocked over 15 liters of Gatorade! Hope he’s all right. He only weighs 84 kilos you know.”

Previously, I thought that converting American Football to metric was not all that important, but I’ve since changed my view. Football is the one sport in the US where measurement takes center stage. It is always about the distance to the first down marker. When there is a dispute about whether a first down has been achieved, the chain is brought out to measure the distance. I cannot think of another sport which is so intricately integrated with the idea of measurement and distance. Converting football to metric would almost instantly de-mystify metric measurement. I suspect by the end of the first metric football season no one would even notice the use of meters.

The objection that is often forwarded about switching football to the metric system is that it would make all of the old records meaningless. In my time watching American Football on this planet, I’ve seen an almost uncountable number of rule changes occur in professional Football over the years. How on earth can one argue that changing to a 100 meter field with 10 meter end-zones would be any more of a change than we’ve seen in the last 100 years. One could argue that metric conversion would give the NFL a “clean start” and also make football  more international.

People many times use common objects to describe quantities. Pea sized, or golf ball sized hail comes to mind as an example. The football field is often invoked as a touchstone for area and distance. A distance might be described as the number of lengths of a football field. Areas are also often described using football fields. (can you tell me how large an acre is? It’s smaller than a football field, which contains 1.322 acres). The metric football field had 6000 square meters, a current field is 5351.215 square meters.

Converting football would most likely help metrication considerably and eliminate some silly imperial usage. I was watching the Atlanta Falcons play the Denver Broncos on September 17 (2012-09-17) and heard this from the referees: “It’s third down on the six inch yard line.”  Clearly metric would help. It would be third down on the 150 mm line–all meters.

The Northfield Minnesota Historical Society has an oral history of The Metric Football Game on video here. You can also watch it on YouTube. I want to thank them for sending me an original program from the 1st Metric Football Game to use with this post.

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.