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Monday Metrics – why doesn't the U.S. use the Metric System?

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A rule used in the U.S.!
The U.S. uses inches AND centimeters!

Have you noticed that the United States uses a different system of measurement the rest of the world? Have you ever wondered why we use them? Well, we have done a little research for you….

Why most of the world uses the common Metric System, the United States, Liberia and Myanmar continue to use a system based on the Imperial System.

The Metric system is based off units of the power of 10. The American version of the Imperial system (the inch) is based on 2s. In the late ninteenth century, the rest of the world began adopting the uniform metric system The reason is because having the same unit of measure in different countries would make communication easier – it’s almost like speaking the same language.

So, why didn’t the United States join?

Well, at that time, the US was becoming dependent on machinery, and all of this machinery was made based on the US version of the Imperial unit of measure. It would have been very expensive to convert and rebuild everything according to the Metric system, so industrialist (the people who made and used the machines) worked hard to block the change. They succeeded!

To this day, the U.S. continues to use its own system of measurement!

 

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