Metric System: As Easy as Counting to Ten

Growing up in Indonesia and Canada, I learned how to measure everything in metric: kilograms, meters, celcius, etc.  As far as I can remember, I didn’t have a need to learn the weird American system such as yards, pounds (other than UK money), etc.  Metric measurement is not difficult to learn, everything is divided by 10, the basis of decimals.  It’s natural because we have 10 fingers and 10 toes.  I taught my daughter how to count to 10 by using our fingers.  Then how come Americans measure by feet?  Who’s feet?  My feet is bigger than my daughter’s.  I will end up visually guessing the distance anyway, so why not get use to meters or centimeters?

Now that I’m California, I’m forced to familiarize myself with the system.  It takes a while, but I get used to it.  The funny part is, I learn to play golf here so now I use yardage as distances to the hole, so I’m not used to using meters to measure distances on the golf course.   Golf courses around the world uses yards also, for the benefit of the rich American tourists.  Goes to show how powerful this country really is.

Tags: math, measurement