J. Clarke
In article <0001HW.1C40983F0AFC595F153DB23CF@news.giganews.com>, savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com says...

Savageduck
On Jan 8, 2016, Eric Stevens wrote (in article<nam09bhumkjkg3tbavcbg915v6tm7ckldf@4ax.com>):

Eric Stevens
On Thu, 07 Jan 2016 19:25:03 -0500, nospam<nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

nospam
In article<ejvt8bphsrs4b3sjsa8bcn3p2mo6ctna8h@4ax.com>, Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz>wrote:

Eric Stevens
The USA has numerous specifications for mechanical components, specified in metric units. This includes nuts, bolts. bearings, structural steel, sheet metal. All of these specifications are required because metric components are in extensive use.

nospam
some are, and plenty are imperial. my cars have a mix of both.

Eric Stevens
As I said, it's creeping up on you. See http://tinyurl.com/gwwfme2 or

Savageduck
http://www.assemblymag.com/blogs/14-assembly-blog/post/87563-u-s-auto- industry

Eric Stevens
-goes-metric

Savageduck
It has more than crept up on us. The US military went metric with the advent of NATO, and I know that all physics and chemistry I studied was metric. I believe you will be hard pressed to find a college in the USA where any Imperial measure is used in teaching physics, chemistry, pharmacology, etc.

Home economics might be the place to start with that US metric conversion.

J. Clarke
I don't know if it's still true but when I was in engineering school we learned both systems. And out in the real world if you don't know both in engineering you're likely to have problems--lots of stuff pre-dates metrication. The US military did not "go metric with the advent of NATO", it may have gone to use of metric units for some purposes but I was working in the defense industry in the '80s and most of the designs I dealt with (for systems developed in the '50s and '60s and '70s) did not use metric.

Officially the US did not "go metric" until 1992 when the Federal government was required to start using metric for procument, grants, and other business-related activities.

Personally I think metric is crap--it's not "a more rational system", it's just a system with a different arbitrariness.