Global Standards

So I got an email from a good friend of mine the other day. He's in the US Navy and he told me a little about his visit to Rio de Janeiro. He wrote, "...as we were there in Autumn, we were up in the clouds and couldn’t see any of the city. In fact, we couldn’t see more than about 100 yards (or meters since I was in a place that is smart enough to use metric, which is a gripe about our culture for another time)." Funny enough, I actually gripe with him on this one, not against him like on so many other issues. I think it would be great for business and education and government for the whole world to use one system of measurement, and a decimal one at that.

So, I got to thinking (oh no!) about yards vs. meters, and I think both are equally at home in Brazil, and most of Europe, and Japan, too. Even Australia uses the yard every now and then. "Really?" you might ask. Sure, they use metric units all day: liters of gas, kilometers of distance, kilograms of "weight", etc., but the world's sport, that beautiful game called football (not to be confused with throwball), or soccer for us poor, uncultured Yanks, uses yards to define the size of and lines on the field (interestingly enough, a Rugby field is measured in meters! The things you learn...).

So there is a place for at least one imperial unit in almost all the world, at least where football is played. Now, being that the United States is one of the last countries using lots of Imperial units, you might think that the metric system might have no place here. On the contrary, the "communist", "leftist" public and private education system in the United States teaches students about the metric system. I am currently enrolled in a physics course at a local private university (decidedly NOT leftist even) and we do most every calculation in metrics.

So why don't we just get it over with and switch to the metric system already? I have a better question: why don't the English and Japanese drive on the proper side of the road? The answer is infrastructure. Just how much would it cost to change the entire United States over to the metric system? How much more would it cost to switch England and Japan to left-hand drive?

Then again, what's the cost of not using the metric system? $125 million?

Would it be worth it? In the long run, obviously. It would take at least half a generation to effect either change, and a lot of time, effort and money. I just wish the Brits and Japanese would get on it already. There are some hot right-hand drive cars in this world, and I can't be bothered to shift gears with my left hand.