Why does America use a different system of measures than the rest of the world?
There isn’t any such thing as an “American Standard” system of units. The National Institute of Standards, NIST is not a government organization. It is private and it sets standards for manufacturers in this country in both Metric and Imperial units. I am guessing that the units that you are speaking of are things like foot, gallon, etc. These are correctly called “Imperial units” and they are a gift from our “mother country”, England. From those basic imperial units, we have built more complex units like foot-pound, which are called English Engineering Units. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution and continuing to the present day, machine tools and consumer goods are made using standard units, because they need to work with the items that people already own. People around the world build things in Imperial units because they want to sell them in one of the world’s biggest markets, the USA.
Firstly they are not the only country to not use the metric system. The UK also still uses the imperial system, although it is used less and less often with each passing day and the UK system is slightly different from the US system. Secondly, I see on other comment threads you claim metric to be more accurate, it is not! The metric system is far superior to any imperial system as we count using a decimal based numerical system so out brains are used to factors of 10. The US is not switching over to metric basically because a high proportion of its population are unable to think in anything other than the imperial system that took them so many years to learn. Their education system is in desperate need of a huge shake-up and hopefully this will happen soon, including introducing the metric system to the children, maybe only teaching metric (like they did in the UK 15 years ago), the switch will take time, but they should switch soon, hopefully.
more or less this: Both the Imperial system and the USA system of measurement are based on the older English units of measurement. Prior to 1066 the English units included Anglo-Saxon measures (likely of ancient Germanic origin). After the Norman conquest (Battle of Hastings in 1066), the Normans re-introduced Roman measures, resulting in a system including ancient Anglo-Saxon measures and Roman measures. These units were standardised by the Magna Carta of 1215 and were periodically reviewed and updated (notably in 1496, 1588 and 1758). The UK Weights and Measures Act of 1824 was one such review, which not only modified the types and sizes of the units, but renamed them from the English units of measurement to the Imperial System of Measurement. This new standard was then introduced throughout the UK and its colonies at this time. However, the USA had become independent prior to this and consequently did not adopt the Imperial system of measurement. Instead, they had developed their ow
America DOES use the metric system, we just do not use it exclusively or even predominantly. The metric system IS taught in the school systems, and is required. All sciences are taught using the metric system. Milk comes in gallons, but we buy 2 and 3 liter bottles of soda, for instance. We are not the only country to still use the imperial system in some manner. http://en.wikipedia.org/…/…
