No where near on topic for the original post, but... Metric may be hard to get a "feel" for, but its 1000x easier to do calculations with. When I was getting a Mechanical Engineering degree we'd have to do homework with both english, and metric units, and you'd always have to work twice as hard on an english units problem. For instance slugs are mass, and lbs are force, but when someone tells you something weighs 5 lbs and you need to use it in an equation there's just a list of extra steps you have to go through, so for a calculations standpoint its way easier in metric. That said does a machine shop want to have to get all new tooling because all of their drill bits that were english don't match with metric, how about new tubing benders, the list goes on and on. If you look at a honda you'll see the exhaust pipes match up to sizes in inches. The calculations they used to build the car were all metric, but if you change the oil on my toyota minivan, the plug takes a 9/16" socket (on the other hand I need a 15 mm for my buick). When I was a co-op at Delphi they had all metric specifications for nuts and bolts, to the decimal place so they'd look like (or really be equal to) "standard" sizes, but all of the numbers in the computer were metric. I don't know the practical answer, but if you could just start from scratch I'd go metric all the way!
Sam
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