The United States is the only industrialized country that does not use the metric system as their system of measurement. The metric system may seem hard to use at first, but that is just unfamilialarity to the system. .
The metric system follows the decimal number system, or everything increases or decreases in size by 10's. Also there are seven basic units that make up the system of measurement. The basic unit of measurement is the meter. The other six are the kilometer, hectometer, decameter, decimeter, centimeter and the millimeter.
Other nations began to convert to the metric system after 1840, when the French people were required to use it. By 1850, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, and parts of Italy had adopted the metric system.
In the early 1990's U.S. businesses were starting to make greater use of the metric .
units. They started this change because they were competing in a global market based on the metric system.
In 1821 Secretary of the State John Quincy Adams proposed the conversion to the metric system, but congress turned his proposal down. The United States showed no interest in the metric system, after Adams proposal, for more than 40 years. In 1866 the congress made the metric system legal in the United States. They took no action in requiring the use the metric system in the United States.
As you can see it would be hard to convert to the metric system in the U.S., but it would make other things a whole lot easier like trade and marketing. Most businesses are starting to convert to the metric system. In my opinion, I think the United States should require the use of the metric system as our system of measurement.
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