Antony’s Personal Opinion

Recently I asked myself, why does North America use different system of measurement than the rest of the world? They measure length in mile, while the rest of us use meter. They measure weight in pound, while the rest of us use gram. They measure volume in gallon, while the rest of us use liter.

Basically we have two systems of measurement, i.e. metric system and English system. The metric system, a.k.a. SI (Système International d’Unités) is the most widely used system of measurement. The base units include meter and gram. The English system, a.k.a. British system, was originally introduced in the United Kingdom. They use familiar objects or parts of the body as the basic units of measurement. For example, distance on the ground is measured with foot. Volume is measured with gallon (the old name of pail is gallon).

When I moved to North America for the first time, I was a little bit confused. I am more familiar with SI and many people here are more familiar with English system. They say something like “It’s only five miles from here”, “The baby’s weight is 10 pounds” or “The area of this apartment is 800 square feet”. Although I had a lesson how to convert English system to SI in the high school, I have forgotten most of them.

Why does North America still use English system while the rest of the world uses SI? Actually the US government has required the use of SI in all business activities. Read more information at NIST web site. Unfortunately this mandate is easier to say than to realize. Americans are still using English system in their daily life.

How do we convert English system to SI (or vice versa)? The “no brain” way is to use Google Calculator. You can type the following expression in Google search box:

• 5 miles in meters
• 10 pounds in kilogram
• 800 square feet in square meter

I have also compiled a table of conversion between English system to SI:

• 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
• 1 foot = 0.305 meter
• 1 mile = 1.609 kilometers
• 1 ounce = 28.35 grams
• 1 pound = 0.454 kilogram
• 1 (square foot) = 0.093 square meter
• 1 gallon = 3.785 liters
• 1 mile per gallon = 0.425 kilometer per liter

There is an interesting fact about 1 ounces. Some Indonesian people believe that 1 ounce = 100 grams. They even use this “standard” to buy something in the traditional market. Interesting, huh? In fact, when I was a kid, I was taught that 1 ounce = 100 grams. I don’t know the history and background of this. For all Indonesian people who read this blog, let’s tell our friends and relatives to correct this mistake.

Personally, I hope that Americans are willing to adopt SI. It’s too difficult to live with different standards with the rest of the world. Just an example in the mobile phones industry, Americans who use CDMA network for their mobile phones will find difficulties when they are traveling to Europe or Asia. The rest of the world is using GSM network, and many countries don’t support CDMA network.

Updated: I have comments from my readers that 1 ons in Indonesia is actually from Dutch measurement system. They use 1 ons = 100 grams. This is not the same as ounce in BTU. Thanks to Supique and Tedja for the comments.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 at 12:56 am and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.