The intention of this site is to help schools and businesses become more
metric aware. We believe the way to this is without conversion
tables. Instead we will be offering posters, tools and games with image
associations.
Although this site was developed for the United States to help convert to
metric. Anyone is welcome to use the material for teaching the metric
system.
When you look at an object, most people in the U.S. can give an idea of it's size in
inches or feet. Some can then convert this to metric in their minds. Our goal
is to get you to estimate sizes in metric without needed to know conversions.
Input, suggestions and help are always welcome. Although we are not
an official non-profit organization, we are not looking to make a profit. We
want to help people become metric aware. We will try to offer as much as
possible for free, but all money spent on our products and this site, comes
out of our pockets, so some items will have a charge to cover basic costs.
Why are we doing this? Because the metric system is so much simpler and
easier to use than the current U.S. system of measurement and we strongly
believe fully converting to the metric system in the U.S. is necessary.
I refer to our current system of measurement as US and not English, because
there are differences between the system of measurement currently used in the
United States, and the English system of measurement used in England. Some
examples of this would be: a US pint is only 16 fl oz, an English one is 20 fl
oz, and consequently a US gallon is only 0.8 English gallons. An English
"hundredweight" is 112lbs, so a ton (20cwt) is 2240lbs, while a US
ton is 2000lbs.
Until we fully convert to metric, we remain in this twilight zone of
Metric/US measurement where conversion tables will forever haunt us.
The metric system was adopted by most European nations in the 19th
century. In 1866 an act of the Congress of the United States legalized the metric system as
a secondary system of weights and measures in the United States. In 1893 an
order of the Secretary of the Treasury standardized the customary units of the
yard and the pound in terms of the meter and the kilogram. By these
steps the metric system became the primary system of weights and measures in
the United States, Nevertheless, with the exception of science and a few other
specialized fields, we have entered the 21st century and the English/US system is
still predominantly used in the United States.
For questions or comments about this site
click here to send a message to the webmaster.
Copyright 2001 Think-Metric.com
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