From the library: Whatever Happened to the Metric System? How America Kept its Feet, by John Bemelmans Marciano

Last updated on: February 24, 2015 at 9:18 pm by Jane the Actuary

From the library: Whatever Happened to the Metric System? How America Kept its Feet, by John Bemelmans Marciano 2015-02-24T21:18:47-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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I guess I’m being particularly nerdy lately, what with throwing various kinds of stats at you, and now back to my “book report” style of blog post, which particularly illustrates the multiple purposes this blog serves.

(I like to write up little summaries of what I’ve read, if for no other reason that to enable me to pull it up later, rather than “I read a book about that subject once. . . wonder what it was.” Once of these days, when I get my posts properly labelled, it’ll be easier to pull them up, though.)

This book is a combination defense of the American customary system of measurements and a history of the metric system, in particular, with an eye toward the near-misses, when America might have, but didn’t adopt it.

As to the first of these: Marciano believes that there is something more human-scaled about our customary system, with its feet and inches, pounds and ounces, and gallons, quarts, pints, and cups, and so on, both in the fact that our system is more fraction/multiple-based (that is, a half-cup rather than 125 ml, for instance), and the numbers being more “meaningful” — that is, “I am a little over five feet tall” vs. the precision of “I am 160 centimeters.” Do I buy this? I don’t know — I suspect that to a metric-user, it feels perfectly natural to say the latter, though I never really got a feel for this during our stay in Germany (because how often, during your daily life, do you talk about length?). Celsius was easier to get a handle on, and soon enough you can get a feel that 25 degrees is a nice summer day but 30 starts to get rather warm and 35 is rather unpleasant — but at the same time, there is ironically something “metric” about the Fahrenheit system, where the range of temperatures we experience in our daily lives is pretty much nearly 0 to 100.

His ultimate point is pretty much what I also believe, that in all respects that matter, the United States has converted to metric: science and industry, healthcare (e.g., how many mg of an active ingredient is in your pill), and the like. As to the rest, it dosen’t much matter that a kilometer is 1000 meters and a mile is some mysterious number of feet, because we measure in miles and in feet in completely different contexts.

But the interesting part is the history: the fact that Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was actually quite keen on the meter. Back at the dawn of the American Republic, we already “went metric” with respect to our money, and it was indeed a radical step, at the time, to move to a decimal system for dollars and cents. (Indeed — I hadn’t known this — the entire concept of doing math by calculating partial amounts as decimals, rather than fractions, was still relatively new and not in common use.) When the French had their revolution, and simultaneously worked on a new system of measures, Jefferson, who, as Secretary of State, was tasked with proposing a uniform system of measures for the United States, had hopes that the new French system would fit the bill.

But then two things happened: first, the Reign of Terror, which soured a previously-enthusiastic Jefferson on the French Revolution (“for Jefferson, it was thrilling to experience a revolution unfolding before him for a second time. He thought of the American and French revolutions as joined,” p 38), and second (though I can’t find a page reference for this), it became increasingly important to be on the same system of measurements as the British, as America’s primary trading partner.

In the meantime: Napoleon. As he made his way through Europe, he imposed the metric system on the countries he conquered, and it “stuck.” (Fun fact: prior to the metric system, there was no consistent unit of measure; scientists who wanted to share their results with others, using a different-length “foot,” would send a tape measure when corresponding, along with their results.)

Anyway, there were various other false starts, and attempts by Americans to get the country to adopt the metric system. There were also attempts at other sorts of harmonization, for instance, a common currency: before the Euro, before the gold standard was abandoned, at the time of the Civil War, coinage was proposed that would be equally worth 20 francs, $5, or one pound. That didn’t happen, but as countries adopted the gold standard, exchange rates became fixed, which was close enough. The establishment of a prime meridian, and of time zones was another achievement, but goals to establish a new calendar system, with “extra” out-of-week days added to keep each year the same, with respect to days of the week, failed.

And here’s Marciano’s concluding thought, agree with it or not: the English (now more properly American) customary system is a part of our heritage, and at the same time as we bemoan the homogenization of culture throughout the world, we should treasure our unique heritage rather than just clamoring to be like everyone else.

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