before starting this episode, I'm going to tell a story first
It was a true story, happened when I back in college
The school had a event, which Coca Cola was the sponsor
before the opening, there was a trivia about Coca Cola
one question was: What was the capacity of one can of coke?
the answer was 355ml
I was quite confused:
Why did they set up such an uneven number for the capacity?
Why did they made an even number for the soda can's capacity?like 250ml, 500ml?
until I came to the US
the question finally got answered
if you convert 355ml into imperial, which is 12 oz
let's take a look at these two sets of hexagon screw drivers
the black one is in metric
and the yellow one is in imperial
4,3,2.5,2, means the diameters are in the corresponding amount of millimeter
and this one, 5/32,9/64, 1/8, are in inches
that's bring up the topic, why do I need two sets of screw driver
because American still uses imperial system
about the volume
let's take a look at this measuring cup
a basic measurement of volume is cup
before I came to the US
I've read some health advice, which suggested people to drink 8 cups of water everyday
I was curious: how big the cup should be?
I can drink from small cups or big mason jar, those capacity are different
after I came to the US, I found out:"cup is a standard unit!"
right here, 1 cup, 2 cups
1 cup= 248 milliliter in metric
it's not a even number,too
2 cups equal to 1 pint
in Chinese, we call it 品脱
the unit smaller than cup is ounce
8 ounces= 1 cup
16 ounces = 1 pint
look at the detail here
it has an fl. which means fluid
fluid ounce are use to measure volume
there is another ounce uses to measure weight
1 ounce=28 grams
which won't have "fl" in the front
what a messy system
the unite smaller than ounce is tablespoon and teaspoon
the biggest is tablespoon
the second biggest one is teaspoon
This is a bottle of OTC pediatric medicine
which of course is liquid
the measuring cup has half metric marks half imperial marks on it
if you are a foreigner in the US
it could be very confusing,and why doesn't American use metric?
why do they stick to such a complicat system?
gallon, a bigger unit to measure the volume
this is one gallon of milk
the small bottle is half gallon
you can also see how much dairy the westerner comsumes
1 gallon =3.78 liter
if you buy this big bottle of milk
would be weigh about 3.5 kilograms
anything else comes in gallons?Gasoline!
the gas is priced for gallons
the city water is priced by 1000 gallons
temperature
let's take a look at my oven
turning one the oven
350 degree in fahrenheit
not celsius
celsius is very clear to me
the freeze point of water is 0 degree
the boiling point of water is 100 degrees
then we divide them for 100 equal sections for each degree
how to convert fahrenheit into celsius?
see how complicate it is
if you go to hospital
the body temperature they take will be in fahrenheit
or the weather forecast, also in fahrenheit
like the highest temperature is 90 degrees,
the lowest temperature is 50 degrees
and the length
when I took my drivers licence test
they asked my height
I told them in metric
they said it has to be in imperial
I didn't even know imperial before I came here
I didn't know how to convert metric to imperial
then, they asked me to stand aside to do the math
you have to convert your height into X feet Y inches
there are only 3 countries in the world officially use imperial system
beside the US
the other twos are Myanmar and Liberia
I guess most people couldn't locate the other two countries on the map
I don't know if there is any inconvenience for American not using metric system
but for the foriegners live in the US
imperial is a troublesome system
why does American refuse to switch to metric?
I knew even British had switched to metric system
at least officials had dumped imperial units
probably civilians are used to use imperial
American still insists on using imperial system
beside out of the arrogance of an well developed country
I couldn't find a reason for the US to stick on imperial units
next episode: American fast food restaurant_Wendy's