The Metric System Is Here to Stay: Difference between revisions
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{{trope|wppage=Metrication}}
{{quote|''"'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next."
''"Never heard of 'em," said the barman shortly. "Litre and half litre--that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you."''
|'''''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'''''}}
Although fiction set in the present-day United States tends to use [[American Customary Measurements|
While futuristic science fiction embraces this trope, futuristic ''fantasy'' often averts it: imperial measurements seem more appropriate for a non-scientific milieu.
The metric system is at least for scientific applications superior to the imperial system - water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius,<ref>That was the original definition. It's still approximately correct, given typical atmospheric pressure and
Just to note, the United States is one of only three countries, along with Burma (Myanmar) and Liberia, that have not adopted the SI (metric) as their official system. So it is generally considered only a matter of time.
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{{examples}}
== Anime
* While ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' and its numerous spin-offs list all the [[Humongous Mecha]] specifications in metric units, it doesn't really qualify for this trope because the series is made in Japan, where the metric system is widely used. However, the fact that few (if any) American translations bother to convert them is probably due to this trope.
== Fan Works ==
* Douglas Sangnoir of ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' comes from a timeline where the metric system has made further inroads in the United States than it has in our timeline; as a result he only uses Imperial units in figures of speech (like "give them an inch and they'll take a mile").
== Film ==
* Used as a joke in ''[[Zenon|Zenon: Girl Of The Twenty First Century]]''. Zenon is from a space station, but when she arrives on Earth, she explodes a test tube because she was thinking in Celsius when all the instructions were in Fahrenheit. [[Critical Research Failure|In a
* ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'', naturally. ("[[wikipedia:Klick|Klick]]" is military slang for kilometer, in case you were wondering.)
** Also normal person slang in Canada.
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' while set in the past is futuristic and obeys this trope though "inch" and "mile" do appear occasionally appear in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], especially when used in metaphorical speech (averting [[Hold Your Hippogriffs]]) instead of literal distance. It's unknown if these uses fall under [[Translation Convention]], or if the Galaxy Far Far Away itself had an alternative system of measurements that remain primarily in figures of speech.
* Like its [[Firefly|originating series]], ''[[Serenity]]'' quietly averts this trope with a single line:
{{quote|'''Wash:''' Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked out by a 90-pound girl, 'cause I don't think that's ever gettin' old.}}
== Literature ==
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] by Scottish author [[Ken MacLeod]]'s ''[[Fall Revolution]]'' books. When asked why spacecraft use imperial measures, Ellie May Ngwethru replies, "Fucking NASA." ([[Did Not Do the Research|Which is wrong]]; the reason the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed was that NASA and JPL were using metric but Lockheed-Martin was using imperial, and didn't check the measurements.)
* ''[[Honor Harrington|Honorverse]]'' is thoroughly metric (even the [[Deep South]] of Grayson), to the point that Honor, while reading ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' in her spare time, wondered what those "inches" and "pounds" mean and how much would it be. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] when the Grayson pasttime of baseball is introduced in the books. Despite using metric for everything else, the Graysons stubbornly insist on using American measurements for baseball, because if they attempted to use metric, they'd either end up with crufty measurements (keeping the field the right dimensions) or end up with a field that was slightly off in distances. They refuse to update the game to include modern measurements because baseball is [[Serious Business]].
** But averted in Weber's [[Safehold]] Series. The people of Safehold use imperial units, which were deliberately imposed (along with roman numerals and certain religious proscriptions) early in the colonization project in order to hinder technological progress.
* [[David Drake]]'s ''[[RCN Series]]'' has Cinnabar use the imperial system while their enemies the Alliance (''not'' [[The Alliance]]) use metric—but [[Word of God|Drake]] says that's just [[Translation Convention]] because he believes that after more than a thousand years, humanity will have scrapped both systems in favor of something else.
* As seen in the page quote, in British speculative fiction using the metric system in the future is usually a hint of dystopia. Oddly this is a much more common use than in American fiction, perhaps because the metric system has never been (in parts) imposed by government in America.
* Thoroughly averted by [[Larry Niven]]. His [[Ringworld]] (for example) is "six hundred million miles" in circumference.
* ''[[Uglies]]'' uses this, to the extent that another system of measurement isn't even mentioned.
* [[Warhammer
* [[David Foster Wallace]] had a personal liking for metric (it seems), so in many of his works (including ''[[Infinite Jest]]''), metric units prevail if he can help it.
* There's a curious semi-inversion in the short-lived series of English translations of the ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'' novels. Because the originals are in German distances are given in metric, but translator Wendayne Ackerman consistently renders meters into yards - not even bothering to multiply by three to get feet.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' caused a scientific error due to this trope. During the production of the ''[[Star Trek: The
▲== Live Action TV ==
** Decades after the series ended, scientists managed to reach a temperature below -273.15°C (by adding energy to the sample in order to cool it), but there was no hint that this was possible when the episode was made.
▲* ''[[Star Trek]]'' caused a scientific error due to this trope. During the production of the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "The Royale", they "converted" a temperature to Celsius (presumably to make it more "futurey") by simply swapping the unit names. The original temperature was -291° Fahrenheit (-179,4 °C), but the lowest possible temperature (absolute zero) is -273.15 degrees Celsius... whoops.
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** The novelisation for ''[[Star Trek IV: The
* On ''[[Babylon 5]]'', the eponymous station is consistently described as "five miles long". This is, however, the only measurement on the show that does not use the metric system.
* ''[[Terra Nova]]''. Justified in that there are people from several different countries in the settlement.
* The ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "War Stories" showcases Wash's [[Improbable Piloting Skills]], simultaneously averting this trope:
{{quote|'''Zoe:''' ''(referring to their attempt to dock at Niska's skyplex)'' It's like throwing a dart, Jayne, and trying to hit a bulls-eye 6,000 miles away.}}
== Tabletop Games ==
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* ''[[Champions]]''. As of 6th Edition, all distances are in meters or kilometers. (Previous editions used "hexes" as a unit of distance or area, which were two meters across.)
* Inverted in Steve Jackson Games' ''[[GURPS]]'', which—despite the "Generic Universal" part of its name—has firmly stuck with the imperial system for the past twenty years, even when offering a licensed conversion of the ''[[Traveller]]'' system.
** Apparently so much of the player base is American that they can't afford to switch to metric because, like many small RPG makers,
** Also averted in ''[[Car Wars]]''. Miles, feet, and pounds abound in Autoduel America.
* Older versions of ''[[
* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' and ''[[Cyber Punk 2020]]'' both used metres for ranges and kilogrammes for encumberance purposes.
* The 3rd edition rules for ''[[Star Wars]] d20'' used metres, when literally all other games based on the d20 system were based on the imperial system.
* Like the rest of its [[Firefly|parent franchise]], the ''Serenity'' RPG averts the trope, and more overtly than its predecessors. Speed is given in feet and miles, and warheads are measured in pounds, to name a few examples.
== Video Games ==
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* The ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series measures almost everything in metric. The only aversion is in time, for which the game uses [[Proud Merchant Race|Teladi]]-derived [[Standard Time Units]] (and as of ''X3: Terran Conflict'', this has been scrapped for player convenience).
== Web Comics ==
* The (essentially) culturally American society shown in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' uses the metric system, even among civilians... but every now and then the (American) author forgets himself.
* ''[[Afterlife Blues]]''. "You didn't recognise the Hero of Athens when you were two meters away from her?"
* ''[[Freefall]]'' often has the characters using metric units with the Imperial equivalents in footnotes.
* ''[[Escape from Terra]]'', in addition the Martian calendar and system of time measurement is decimalized (1 Martian day = 100 centimes).
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Civil Protection]]'' implies that Earth's gone metric post-Combine-takeover when Mike gives directions in "Shadow of a Doubt":
{{quote|'''Mike:''' Alright, what you want to do here is take a right at the end of this road, and stay on it for about a mile. I mean, a kilometer or two.}}
== Real Life ==
* For some peculiar reason, British road signs still give distances in miles despite the fact that the metric system has been taught exclusively in schools since at least the early 1990s. Retailers exclusively use the metric system for ''all'' foodstuffs apart from beer and milk, which are defined in both systems.
** The usual cited reason for not changing is the sheer expense of changing pretty much ''every roadsign in the land that has a number on it''. Every distance sign and speed sign would need to be replaced, which would be a colossal undertaking. It's for the same reason that milk and beer can still be sold in pints; replacing all the pint bottles and glasses is not practical. (Never mind that every other Commonwealth country did exactly that when they switched to metric.)
* During [[The Eighties]], a conclusive switch to the metric system was widely anticipated in the United States. [[It Was His Sled|Obviously, that didn't happen,]] but at the time the expectation was so prevalent that the newly-finished [[wikipedia:Interstate 19|Interstate 19]] put up signs with distances in kilometers. The program ran from 1975 to 1982, and it's worth noting that its failure was not necessarily because Americans disliked the metric system. Public opinion tended to be split or just ambivalent, so the Reagan administration couldn't justify the cost of overseeing and marketing the metrication effort, educating manufacturers, and changing highway signs. Several of the aforementioned metric road signs still stand today, particularly near the Canadian and Mexican borders.
** The metric system did take hold in manufacturing, as companies wanted to build things that could be easily repaired overseas, hence [[Vanilla Ice]] singing about his "Five Oh"<ref>A Ford Mustang with a 5.0l V8</ref> and not his "three oh two."
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:We Will Not Use an Index In The Future]]
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