Why does America still measure in imperial?

Do you agree with it? Do you think it will ever convert to metric?

Why does America still measure in imperial?
Having had to convert a recipe from American standard to metric, it's not all about moving a decimal. 5g of sugar does not have the same volume as 5 g of powdered sugar.





Being American, I'm used to it. Metric would be easier for some things (like gauging temperature and liquid volumes) but I would find measuring everything out by weight to be, well, bloody annoying. I like my teaspoons.
Reply:One reason is that Imperial is more ergonometric. Many of the measurements are based (loosely) on dimensions of the human body. For instance, I am 6'-0" tall. That's 182.88 cm. My hand matches the standard hand of 4" (10.16 cm). Almost all our fasteners are measured in 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16" or multiples of those. Our tolerances are expressed in 0.001" metric tolerances are usually in 0.1 mm which is about 4 times as coarse. an equivalent metric tolerance would be 0.0254 mm. 100° F is still a fair approximation of the temperature of the human body, although 37° C is an exact equivalent to 98.6° F (I wonder if that wasn't metric influence creeping in).





Eventually, the U.S. will probably be forced to convert to metric, but it will be a painful process. Our land is surveyed into 1 square mile sections, 36 sections per township, 36 townships per range. There is a grid of roads using 1 mile as the unit. That will become 1.61 km. Resurveying to a 1Km grid is completely out of the question.





Edit


reference bullets, the standard NATO ammunition round, and the round for the AK47 is 7.62 mm, which now is an exact conversion for .30 calibre.
Reply:traditions are hard to break. Metric system is much better. converting is just a matter of moving a decimal. I think that metric is probably used in science and engineering and fields like that.
Reply:Officially, we converted to metric a long time ago. But considering how long the transition has taken in Britain, it's no surprise that it's taking even longer in the US.





And technically, we don't use the Imperial system. The US system and the Imperial system use the same names for units, but their values (when converted to metric) are not precisely the same.
Reply:God only knows, I guess metric is a bit too european or maybe the change over is too scary for them





Interesting to note though that they refer to bullets in mm and weights of drugs in mg or g.
Reply:We are a big country cut off from world by oceans so our contact with other countries is limited so our experience with metric is also.The US tried to convert in the 80's. For several year temperature were given in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade, gas pump had liters as well as gallons, etc. The only thing that was accepted is we can now buy Coke and Pepsi in 1 liter containers and some food and most vitamins are labeled in grams. In another 20 or 30 years the younger generation may be more flexible as people travel more now.


I work in science so use metric regularly but I still do not know if I need a coat if temperature is given in centigrade.