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Interesting fact of the day, about 78% of the worlds GDP is produced in countries using the metric system. 22% of the worlds GDP is produced by the imperial system (the system the USA and UK and a few other countries use).
Actually a correction, in that measurement the UK was counted as metric.. which is only partly true.. So the number for imperial system is a bit higher in reality.
In manufacturing, the UK has been completely metricated for donkey's years; the construction industry, likewise.
Aside from the use of miles on road signs (judged to be far too expensive to change), the use of MPG for fuel consumption (but not compatible with US MPG as the US gallon is much smaller than the UK gallon), the use of pint measures in pubs (but millilitres for spirit measures) and the continuing use of square feet and acres by estate agents, just about everything in the UK is fully metricated. However, in the personal field, I think most people still talk of their weight in stones and lbs but doctors use Kilos. Likewise with height, the public tend to use ft & inches but medicine uses centimetres.
Talking of metrication - when were you last prescribed a medicine in grains, scruples or fractions of an ounce? Even in prehistoric America, the pharmaceutical industry has been metricated for a very, very long time!
@Paulos_the_fog And milk, food, peoples weights... Sounds like you guys are still on imperial outside of engineering or technical pursuits more or less. When I was in UK last virtual everything Im exposed to day to day was imperial.
@Paulos_the_fog I'd argue using two separate systems interchangeably is **far** more an insanity than having a purely imperial or metric system.
There is no such thing as a purely 'imperial' system
All the countries that use customary measures like the US, also use metric measures. All pharmaceutical doses are metric and most other medicine is likewise conducted in metric units.
Electricity and electronics have pretty much always been metric.
So far as the UK is concerned, professionals tend to use the metric system - the ordinary man in the street is the user of the old units!
1) Yes there is an imperial system just as much as there is a metric system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units)
2) Yes most countries that Officially and/or primarily uses the imperial system will also sometimes use units outside the imperial system, sometimes that will be metric
3) While I wouldnt say "professionals" in the UK exclusively use metric I think its fair to say scientists and engineers do at least. However describing what system or units a country uses is not limited to what their scientists use, and the fact is, as a country, they use a horrid mess of imperial, metric, and in some cases nonsense that is neither (stones instead of lbs). Far worse than the mess int he USA, at least they are consistent and use one clearly defined system.
Some years back, when I lived in France, after a well-watered dinner with friends, I had a party piece that never failed to have my audience practically crying with laughter.
All I had to do to induce these paroxysms of hysterical laughter was simply explain to them the intricacies of the imperial system of weights and measures.
You have to bear in mind that our dinner guests were invariably of French nationality and had been brought up in France. Obviously complete nonsense like the imperial system of weights and measures is not taught in French schools so they have no knowledge whatsoever of that criminally deranged system!
Compared to the elegantly simple metric system where, for example, 1cc of water equals one 1ml of water and weighs 1g, the imperial system of weights and measures along with the customary system used in the United States is phenomenally complex (the imperial measures used in the UK and the customary US units are not the same in all cases).
I always prefaced my explanation with “Every word I am about say is the truth – I’m not making this up”. They wondered and asked incredulously if I was kidding, at the rationale behind 1 yard = 3 feet, and 1 foot = 12 inches. They were even more astonished when I mentioned that there are 22 yards in a chain and that there are 5½ yards in a rod, perch or pole (the choice of term is yours). There are 40 rods (or perches or poles) to the furlong and 8 furlongs to the mile! By this time, their credulity was stretched to the absolute limit and they often began suggesting that I should see a shrink for what was clearly, to them, psychotic ideation! Having once again sworn I was telling them the truth; most people were moved to remark:
“No country could be so utterly, completely stupid as to use a shit system like that by choice, surely?”
I could but agree!
Then I’d start on the system of volume measurements where they would learn that there are 20 minims to the fluid scruple, 3 fluid scruples to the fluid drachm, 8 fluid drachms to the fluid ounce, 5 fluid ounces to the gill, 4 gills to the pint, 2 pints to the quart and 4 quarts to the gallon. (I know, I know American measures in this case are not the same as UK ones). Moving on to larger quantities. There are 4 gallons to the peck and 4 pecks to the bushel. There are 8 bushels to the quarter and we’ll leave measures of volume there but there is more!
Finally, to weights:
There 16 drams (or drachms) to the ounce, 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone (I don’t care whether Americans use stones – in the UK we do!), 2 stones to the quarter, 4 quarters to the hundredweight and 20 hundredweight to the (long) ton (the US ton is different).
Finally, I would mention that the system of standard weights used in the UK is known as the ‘system avoirdupois” which is old French for and pronounced exactly as “Avoir du poids” or in English “to have weight”. By this time, everyone was laughing so much at the overwhelming stupidity of the Americans and the British, that they were practically wetting themselves!
@freemo
Not food - you are obliged by law to price and sell that in metric units in the UK - for milk likewise it may be a UK pint, but the the labelling has to be in millilitres. To me what the US does is utter insanity but thankfully it doesn't really impact me!
One of Britain's largest industries is the construction industry and that is 100% metricated (I would know - it's the industry I used to work in before I retrained as a software engineer).