'Imperialism' cripples exports

I think it has to do with education. We need all the newly minted engineers to convert to metric (I tend to think in metric because that is what I was taught in college). We aren't the only country with problems like this, Scotland has all their road signs in miles even though all the speedometers are in km.
Our English measurement system has gotten us into trouble before, anyone remember the mars orbiter that crashed because Lockheed Martin used English and JPL used metric?

I was taught in metric through my schooling in England (one of the first, so that dates me!) but I still think in Imperial (as we English refer to what you Americans call the "English" system) for weights and lengths. In any calculations I did at Uni or do now at work, I look at the result, convert it to imperial and ask myself if the result is reasonable! I can not design in metric...my sketches are in inches/feet and I convert these to metric when drawing up. This bi-linguality has been useful: In my first job we used English and American drawings, so had to be able to convert between metric and imperial. In my current job, pipe diameters are quoted in imperial and their lengths in metric - something I was taught is *very* bad engineering practice!! In Britain (and Scotland is part of Britain) the speedos in cars, etc are in both mph and km/h - the mph numbers being larger and in a more prominant colour. BRodda must be driving an import if it only has km/h. I never did master BTUs and other such delights though, but I still occasionally talk in pre-decimal money. [PS - off topic: how do code for new paragraphs???]

I agree with the fact you should use one system for any giving drawing, specification or schematic. Doing it in more than one is asking for trouble.
As for driving, I was on holiday and we were in a Man touring bus. I asked the driver and he showed me his speedometer and told my about the signs. Sorry if I got it wrong (I can't help being an engineer even on holiday!)

As for breaks; to do a line break it is BR inside of shift+, and shift+.
For a new Paragraph it is P inside shift+, and shift+. (I had to do it that way so thethat the software didn't think they were code.)

Hehe - being an engineer isn't a job, it's a way of thinking! I'll be checking out any coaches I get on from now on!

so let's see if this works....

...it does!!!

works. Thanks

Personally, I'd like to keep Imperial measurements...I make fewer mistakes, as my "powers of 10 blindness" makes all those noughts in metric blur into one....

The real question is do we think this way because we are engineers, or are we engineers because we think this way.
As for the powers of 10, I'm an electronic engineer so I'm used to metric. How odd would it be to refer to memory in hogsheads, gills or gallons? (The closest think I could equate to memory was volume.)

The US Congress did pass the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, (later amended by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, the Savings in Construction Act of 1996, and the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004), but the implementation was voluntary and met stiff resistance from local and state govenments. 1975 was at the beginning of my prime schooling years, but I never caught a whiff of the metric system until high school chemistry & biology. Most of the problem, I believe, remains pedagogical. If the metric system became the centerpiece of US mathematics education, it would be the standard 30 years after. We still have a long way to go.

I remember the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 vividly. This was when gasoline was sold by the liter, metric rulers were everywhere, weather reports were in Celsius, conversion tables were everywhere. I began using metric right away. When gasoline was sold by the liter, there was great confusion, despite the conversion factor printed on the pumps. They should remember that not everyone carries a calculator constantly.

"Top down" attempts to implement the metric system in the U.S. have been largely unsuccessful. But what about "bottom up" approachs? Some seem to be working. For example, we now buy liters of Coke and run in 10K road races. Change is possible.

Ah!! The creeping form of metrickisation.

That's what happened with weights and measures in the UK. They actually made it illegal to sell in Imperial quantities (with an exception) - but I refuse to ask for 100g of cheese when I want 4 oz. Some assistants get really uptight when you ask in Imperial, most however, simply convert it and talk in metric.

The exception is alcohol, which in pubs is still sold in pints and divisions thereof. This came about after the Licencees and Victulers (sp?) Association kicked up a fuss. Good job too!

I really can't see why we couldn't use both, in shops and so on.

I do think it would be odd to order beer (or ale) in anything other than Imperial, be it a 16 oz. beer or a pint of ale.
I do agree that we need to pick one system and stick with it. After talking about it in the REAL CR4 (yes it is a real conference room and yes engineers from Globalspec talk about technology and cool things in there over donuts once a week) most of the ME's said they preferred Imperial because it was an intuitive measure, the electronics guys preferred metric because it made the math simpler.

Hmm....I'd never thought about there being a mech/elec divide on that, but it is logical (Captain) and I agree with both sentiments. I said somewhere I else that I think in Imperial and calculate in Metric, so what does that make me?! ;o)