Sean,

As I said, it was the subject of much discussion at my last firm, and just
took a lot of digging. The USA jumped on the band wagon in 1866 to be exact.
The 1866 agreement basically meant that the US recognised the metric system
(how does that work anyway. "hey you're a meter aren't you, didn't we meet
at that party last week? Thought I recognised you") and gave permission for
it to be used (what happened before that if you were caught in possession of
a metric measuring tool is anyone's guess).

It then took 9 years for a office to be set up to enforce the law and
provide guidelines on its use. Another bit of trivia for you then, there was
a lot of outrage in France at the US calling their office the International
Committee of Weights and Measures and the International Bureau of Weights
and Measures, since the actual standards are in France.As another bit of
trivia, in 1902 Congressional legislation requiring the federal government
to use metric exclusively was defeated by a single vote, so it could have
happened then instead of 1975. In 1966 there was a international conference
on conversion to the metric system that the USA did not send a
representative to.

So the adoption of the metric system has been a struggle in the USA even
though it was originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson and then later by John
Quincy Adams. In addition, the US government conversion should have taken
place by October 1st 1995, but the first contracts were only let in December
1995, when it was 2 out of 16 let that month.

Enough trivia for everyone? There's more if anyone is interested.

So yes, that is the speed the government worked at. As someone pointed out,
the USA is becoming metric inch by inch.

Ranjit


----- Original Message -----
From: Sean T. Stevenson <ststev@un*.co*>
To: Ranjit Chagar <ranjit.chagar@vi*.ne*>; techdiver
<techdiver@aquanaut.com>
Sent: Friday, October 08, 1999 11:59 PM
Subject: Re: Metric System and the USA


> Ranjit, where did you dig up this info?  What this amounts to is that
> the US jumped on the metric bandwagon in 1875, but has moved at the
> speed of government to implement it.
>
> -Sean
>
>

-- original message deleted to reduce length of email ---

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