Pros And Cons Of Metric System

There is a debate whether or not we should switch to the metric system. The metric system was adopted in 1795 by France and is now used in almost all countries. The U.S. is the only country that doesn’t use the metric system. There are many pros and cons about the metric system. Unlike English units, which have seemingly random relationships, all metric units are related by factors of ten. This makes numbers easily scalable and comparisons of numbers much more understandable. When working with English units, one must remember difficult conversions, even when working with the same physical properties. Take, for example, the English units of length. One inch is equal to 1/12 of a foot. One foot is exactly 1/5280 of a mile. In order to

In measuring length with English units, you may use a variety of units: inches, feet, yards, and miles. The metric system bases all length measurements upon one unit: the meter. In English units, volume can be measured in cups, pints, quarts, and gallon, just to name a few. Once again, metric has one unit, the liter, which is used for all volume measurements. With this system of one unit for each property, it is not difficult to determine which of two amounts is greater. If someone were to ask you which is greater, 6 gallons or 42 pints, you will likely have to do some conversions in your head, that is, if you can remember the conversions from pints to gallons. If asked which is greater, 100 grams or 268 grams, the answer is obvious. When working with very small or very large numbers, additional descriptive terms are necessary. The metric system’s solution to this is a short list of consistent prefixes. These prefixes can be affixed to any unit to tell you how many zeroes to add to the beginning or end of a number. Rather than using an entirely new unit name for a larger or smaller amount (as in the English system), the metric system uses these prefixes, which provide a clear sense of scale (milli-, centi-, kilo-, etc.) Simple units combined with a small, consistent set of prefixes allows for communicating the most information with the fewest words and

It would be incredibly beneficial to have consistent units between countries. Not only would this make calculations easier for everyone, but it would also significantly decrease the probability of errors. Each time numbers must be converted to a new system, there is another chance that numbers are converted incorrectly. As history teaches us, the results of incorrect conversions can be disastrous. In 1983, an Air Canada flight ran out of fuel mid-flight due to a mix up with metric and English units. In 1998, NASA (National Air and Space Agency) and ESA (European Space Agency) lost communication with their space observatory and millions of dollars because the agencies were using different units and failed to set up the observatory’s system to use both correctly. In 1999, a patient received 0.5 grams of a sedative instead of the 0.5 grains intended. One grain is equal to 0.065 grams, so the patient received almost eight times the amount they should have! The Institute for Safe Medication Practices encourages medications to be prescribed only in metric units after this incident. Perhaps other fields should follow suit and stick to universal metric