Imperial units are confusing, needlessly complex and absurdly difficult to work with. And yet, the world’s biggest superpower continues to embrace this archaic system of measurement (re-dubbed “United States customary units”.) They can even be quite touchy about it, as Head Squeeze host Matt Parker learned during a post about the A4 paper scale. Undeterred, Parker hit back at his detractors with a hilariously straight-faced “defense” of the system. Unleash the barleycorns of war…
With the sole exception of a human-height and shark-length barometer, imperial measurements serve no purpose in the modern world. The metric system is so much simpler and more logical that its continued existence beggars belief. This apparent nostalgic loyalty to the system even caused NASA to lose the $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter; but the country still shies away from metric units.
If you want to wind up your US chums, simply direct them to the above video. Nothing more needs to be said.
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