| DRIVEN TO DISCOVER - WHY CAN'T WE ALL USE THE METRIC SYSTEM?
 Submitted 10/05/06
The metric system is like an iceberg, says Robert Kudrle, a professor in the University’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. While the United States has already “gone metric” for most things, those things are largely lurking, invisible, under the surface of everyday life.
It’s the “artifacts” of the non-metric system, Kudrle says—items such as discussing distances in miles rather than kilometers or hearing a weather report predict temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit versus Celsius—that rise above the surface and feed people’s impression that we still have a long way to go.
“People are conservative about the artifacts and the things that they see every day,” Kudrle says. “But in fact, nearly all of American industry, including the automobile industry, is largely already metric.”
In the 1970s, the United States’ began a gung-ho campaign aimed at complete metric conversion, Kudrle says. But that initiative ultimately sputtered to a halt due to negative public response.
“I think Americans are proud and traditional and they didn’t see any reason for the change, “he says. “They saw it as a kind of foreign encroachment on their culture.”
Today’s manufacturers and business entities have been forced to adopt the system in order to compete globally and satisfy foreign regulations, Kudrle says.
Although the journey has been slow, Kudrle predicts the United States will eventually move to a metric-only system, which he says is “phenomenally clearer and simpler to use” than other systems. However, he also predicts that some artifacts will remain.
“There are some ways the old system will always be with us,” he says. “For example, we’re never going to change the length of a football field.”
Professor Robert Kudrle recently contributed to a report on KARE 11 TV about the benefits of switching to the metric system.
|
|
|
