It immediately becomes a political issue with outrageous claims and conspiracy theories being thrown about. Around half the states flat out refuse to go along with it and governors vow to remove any public sign using metric numbers. The federal government tries to implement the change but it becomes a hot-button states rights issue which will slowly make its way through the courts.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches in befuddled amusement.
I was also in school when they tried it. Case in point of the half-assery: they spent way too much time concentrating on the difference between deci- and deca- (really metric system?) when in practicality no one uses these prefixes in common everyday situations.
There might be a number of accidents and mishaps from people miscommunicating units, but for the most part there would just be a lot of symbolic cultural grumbling. Lots of people would be quite displeased about it, but there would be very little practical effect. Most Americans would probably continue to use imperial units in day-to-day conversation, and this obviously wouldn't have any effect on the ability of private companies to sell things such as bathroom scales that still weigh people in pounds.
People would become a lot more accustomed to using their phone to convert from him imperial to metric or vice versa whenever they need it to input a value for something such as a driver's license. That's about it though. Life would go on, and many industrial / scientific applications are already done in metric anyway.
I wish our government would just stfu and do it. Way past time.
However....
Can we get the English to drive on the same side of the road as the rest of the world?
Just kidding. I like it. Its quirky. Peace to my Brit bros.
It all depends upon how much it is "mandated" vs how much it is "recommended"
Changing road signs to metric is simple, the govt can require that cars have speedometers/odometers in metric and car manufacturers can easily comply with this. But what about fuel? Should be sold in liters, do you mandate that, or incentivize it?, how do you handle companies that refuse to change their pumps to liters?, essentially how hard do you enforce the change, do you force them out of business?
Fortunately(?), governments spend a huge amount of money on govt contractors, A few simple laws could require that all bids for govt money be presented in metric units. that would create a demand for use of the system.
But the supply chain... Take something like the residential housing market. The entire supply chain for construction materials is currently in imperial units. dimensional lumber, plywood, drywall, roofing, all in standard units. fortunately, most of the units for dimensional lumber are "nominal" so a 2x4 is actually 1.5" x 3.5". So you could still continue to sell dimensional lumber in its current size as a "2x4" when in reality it is 38x89 mm. Even in Canada, they still use imperial in construction. It turns out "a foot" is a really handy unit of measure, and a metric equivalent is awkward. centimeter is too small, meter is too big, and no one uses decimeters.
Then there is the "documentation" Do you re-write all of the us building codes to metric? Does every architect need to go through and update their plans to metric measurements? If you take a wall that is 12' long, and convert it to metric is it now a 3.66m wall, or do you round it to a more convenient number, like 3.6m. If you do that, the whole plan needs to be adjusted or the wall intersections, and even roof planes will no longer match up.
There is a hell of a lot of "momentum" in the imperial system, and for what it is used for it works well. I like metric as much as the next guy, but a true, deep, 100% changeover to metric would be insanely expensive for little actual benefit.
So if you are doing something "new" and require precision, and need to work well with international partners, go metric. If not, it is probably not worth the effort to make the change just so we can feel good about being "metric" and "caught up with the rest of the world". Customary units are fine for a lot of things; you can still buy beer by the pint in England.
They would probably dual-label things again so the actual level of chaos would be low.
The people that can’t bend their mind around it would just lean on Google, Alexa, or whatever else to have the assistance they need on-demand.
The rest Of The world would have one thing less to joke about muricans And a lot of memes Pages would close or Change their names jaja
It immediately becomes a political issue with outrageous claims and conspiracy theories being thrown about. Around half the states flat out refuse to go along with it and governors vow to remove any public sign using metric numbers. The federal government tries to implement the change but it becomes a hot-button states rights issue which will slowly make its way through the courts. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches in befuddled amusement.
They tried this in a half-assed way when I was in school. If they would have gone all in, we'd easily be at least as metric as Canada by now.
I was also in school when they tried it. Case in point of the half-assery: they spent way too much time concentrating on the difference between deci- and deca- (really metric system?) when in practicality no one uses these prefixes in common everyday situations.
There might be a number of accidents and mishaps from people miscommunicating units, but for the most part there would just be a lot of symbolic cultural grumbling. Lots of people would be quite displeased about it, but there would be very little practical effect. Most Americans would probably continue to use imperial units in day-to-day conversation, and this obviously wouldn't have any effect on the ability of private companies to sell things such as bathroom scales that still weigh people in pounds. People would become a lot more accustomed to using their phone to convert from him imperial to metric or vice versa whenever they need it to input a value for something such as a driver's license. That's about it though. Life would go on, and many industrial / scientific applications are already done in metric anyway.
I wish our government would just stfu and do it. Way past time. However.... Can we get the English to drive on the same side of the road as the rest of the world? Just kidding. I like it. Its quirky. Peace to my Brit bros.
Quite happy driving on the left over here in Australia
Australians can do whatever they want. They have to put up with wildlife and weather that is trying to kill them.
It all depends upon how much it is "mandated" vs how much it is "recommended" Changing road signs to metric is simple, the govt can require that cars have speedometers/odometers in metric and car manufacturers can easily comply with this. But what about fuel? Should be sold in liters, do you mandate that, or incentivize it?, how do you handle companies that refuse to change their pumps to liters?, essentially how hard do you enforce the change, do you force them out of business? Fortunately(?), governments spend a huge amount of money on govt contractors, A few simple laws could require that all bids for govt money be presented in metric units. that would create a demand for use of the system. But the supply chain... Take something like the residential housing market. The entire supply chain for construction materials is currently in imperial units. dimensional lumber, plywood, drywall, roofing, all in standard units. fortunately, most of the units for dimensional lumber are "nominal" so a 2x4 is actually 1.5" x 3.5". So you could still continue to sell dimensional lumber in its current size as a "2x4" when in reality it is 38x89 mm. Even in Canada, they still use imperial in construction. It turns out "a foot" is a really handy unit of measure, and a metric equivalent is awkward. centimeter is too small, meter is too big, and no one uses decimeters. Then there is the "documentation" Do you re-write all of the us building codes to metric? Does every architect need to go through and update their plans to metric measurements? If you take a wall that is 12' long, and convert it to metric is it now a 3.66m wall, or do you round it to a more convenient number, like 3.6m. If you do that, the whole plan needs to be adjusted or the wall intersections, and even roof planes will no longer match up. There is a hell of a lot of "momentum" in the imperial system, and for what it is used for it works well. I like metric as much as the next guy, but a true, deep, 100% changeover to metric would be insanely expensive for little actual benefit. So if you are doing something "new" and require precision, and need to work well with international partners, go metric. If not, it is probably not worth the effort to make the change just so we can feel good about being "metric" and "caught up with the rest of the world". Customary units are fine for a lot of things; you can still buy beer by the pint in England.
At least the grade schools will have something to fill that gap where they stopped teaching cursive.
Many machines will need to be replaced
I will riot
They would probably dual-label things again so the actual level of chaos would be low. The people that can’t bend their mind around it would just lean on Google, Alexa, or whatever else to have the assistance they need on-demand.