Obama: Do something useful and convert us to metric. K? Thanks.

There are three main units of measurement in physics: MKS, CGS, and Customary (English). MKS stands for Meters, Kilograms, and Seconds, and CGS stands for Centimeter, Gram, and Seconds. Customary is the confusing collection of feet, miles, pounds, ounces, gallons, and such.

For those having slept through the one math or science class that addressed metric, the best reason to use metric is the way you can easily convert between different units:

• 1 KiloMeter = 1000 Meters = 100000 Centimeters
• 1 Mile = 5280 Feet = 63360 inches

• 1 Liter = 10 DeciLiters = 100 Centileters = 1000 MilliLiters
• 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 256 tablespoons = 768 teaspoons
  

• 1 KiloGram = 1000 Grams
• 1 Pound = 16 ounce
  

You might remember a few years ago when the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed into the surface of Mars. The cause? One of the contractors used metric and the other customary resulting in the orbiter not realizing how far away it was from Mars. Huh? Who the heck uses customary in any field of science? Engineers, I guess.

You can't quit smoking gradually and similarly, you can't convert to metric if you aren't forcefully oppressed by it for a while. The withdrawal will suck, but after being inundated for a while, you won't believe you had to learn the arcane customary measurements. Also, since the economy is currently in a downswing, and the government wants to give away a ton of our tax dollars (which isn't necessarily bad, but it would be better to get something for it), some of that money should go to converting all of our road signs to metric.

Anyway, all of this was precipitated by the latest XKCD comic. Some of the relations are quite useful, regardless of the author's perverse fascination with all things Serenity. There's nothing wrong with raptors or Ron Paul, though.