Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's have an R made for
Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2: I and R.
Speaker 1: You're Noel Brown, I'm Ben Bowling Noel. What would your
Speaker 1: pirate name be if you had to choose one? Ooh goodness,
Speaker 1: gracious put me on the spot. Why don't you?
Speaker 2: Uh? I mean, I don't know, like long John something,
Speaker 2: Perhaps that's good.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: I like John long John Platinum a.
Speaker 1: Long time plus, so I would probably get tagged with
Speaker 1: something like bend the Red yeah, and which which would
Speaker 1: be funny because I can't because I'm partially red green
Speaker 1: color blinds.
Speaker 2: So we're wearing a red hat currently. Oh oh really weird? Okay,
Speaker 2: so I got elephants on. It's really good, thank you.
Speaker 1: Uh. Here in the US, we do love nicknames. We
Speaker 1: also love weird comparisons. It's kind of a known joke
Speaker 1: in our culture today that we will, in general come
Speaker 1: up with any comparison to avoid the metric system. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, wolves and oranges, as we like to say.
Speaker 1: I saw his story a while back about wearing. A
Speaker 1: newscaster described an alligator as ariana grande sized.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I can see that she's she's kind of compact.
Speaker 1: As a unit of measurement. You know, are we.
Speaker 2: Talking about her ponytail length? That's yeah, okay, got it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, well, you always see those comparisons where
Speaker 1: they're like this, you know, this object is about the
Speaker 1: size of four quarter pounders, or this is this many
Speaker 1: football fields, when it would be much more rational and
Speaker 1: sane to just use the metric system. It's almost like
Speaker 1: our country has a phobia about this, like we only
Speaker 1: talk about the metric system here in general when we're
Speaker 1: speaking about science, drugs, or firearms.
Speaker 2: It's true. I always think of the clip from pulp
Speaker 2: fiction where it goes, they ain't got they got the
Speaker 2: metric system over there, they wouldn't know what a quarter
Speaker 2: pounder is.
Speaker 1: Roy I love his accent though in too so, even
Speaker 1: though it's a laugh, and there are loads of examples
Speaker 1: that we might get to later. Today, there is a
Speaker 1: conundrument at play, like why didn't the US catch up
Speaker 1: with the rest of planet Earth, with the rest of
Speaker 1: human civilization. Why are we so averse to the metric system.
Speaker 1: According to one legend, the answer may be pirates.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, of course we fear change and pirate. So
Speaker 2: what is in fact the metric system? For any of
Speaker 2: you non US residing ridiculous historians, this could well be
Speaker 2: old beans to you, as you would say, mister Boland,
Speaker 2: but it's definitely something that we as Americans really do
Speaker 2: need to wrap our head around. Like, the metric system
Speaker 2: is humanity's most popular form of measurement. It is a
Speaker 2: decimal system of weights and measures based on the meter
Speaker 2: for length and the kilo or kilogram for mass.
Speaker 1: And we owe this to the French Revolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it came up in our last episode, Yeah, of
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty nine. It ushered in a lot of chaos,
Speaker 2: and along with that it ushered in some pretty solid innovations,
Speaker 2: like the metric system or the guillotine. Ah, yes, Neil,
Speaker 2: that'll chestnut love. It a very very very efficient way
Speaker 2: of murdering a human. And interestingly enough, I think this
Speaker 2: has come up in recent episodes. Two was still in
Speaker 2: use much more recently than folks might think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was terrible for the executioner industry. You know,
Speaker 1: they were automating people's jobs.
Speaker 2: They're taking our jobs. Our friends of Batanaga have this
Speaker 2: to say about it. We love our friends in Britannica.
Speaker 2: In seventeen ninety one, the French National Assembly directed the
Speaker 2: French Academy of Sciences to address the chaotic state of
Speaker 2: French weights and measures. It was decided that the new
Speaker 2: system would be based on a natural physical unit to
Speaker 2: ensure immutability. Love that word. The Academy settled in the
Speaker 2: length of one ten millionth of a quadrant of a
Speaker 2: great circle of Earth. Might need to unpack this a
Speaker 2: little bit measured around the poles of the meridian passing
Speaker 2: through Paris being the center of the universe, and Arduis
Speaker 2: six year survey which eventually yielded a value of thirty
Speaker 2: nine point three seven zero zero eight inches for the
Speaker 2: new unit to be called the meter from Greek metron,
Speaker 2: meaning measure.
Speaker 1: There we go simple enough, right, and things move quickly
Speaker 1: from there. By seventeen ninety nine we see the emergence
Speaker 1: of the meta and kilogram of the archives, which is
Speaker 1: a flawless French accent. There these are platinum embodiments, artifacts
Speaker 1: that show us what a kilogram weighs and how long
Speaker 1: a meter is. They're the legal standards for all measurement
Speaker 1: in France, and the motto of the metric system is
Speaker 1: really cool. It's kind of inspiring. It's for all people,
Speaker 1: for all time. Nice.
Speaker 2: You know, I do like that. It is efficient, it
Speaker 2: is egalitarian. By eighteen seventy five, the system went wide,
Speaker 2: went global international with the signing of the Treaty of
Speaker 2: the Meter. It's fun and the establishment of the International
Speaker 2: Bureau of Weights and Measures Treaty of.
Speaker 1: The Meter and Weights. Okay, so International Bureau of Weights
Speaker 1: and Measures sounds like a weird band I would hear
Speaker 1: in Athens, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Agreed. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna copy that. Of the
Speaker 2: Meter is their album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're onto something here. Look, the metric
Speaker 1: system is not perfect, but it is way way better
Speaker 1: than the often arbitrary measurement systems of the past. It's
Speaker 1: a political it's based in science. It establishes uniformity for
Speaker 1: everyone involved with the metric system. You no longer have
Speaker 1: to worry about a span being different in one town
Speaker 1: to another.
Speaker 2: You know, like it is a little it is a political,
Speaker 2: but it does have a little bit of that Viva
Speaker 2: la France. Vibe to it, and that Paris was the
Speaker 2: center of the measurements and questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like Greenwich meantime, you know.
Speaker 2: But it's not like they brag about it or that
Speaker 2: it's inherent in the naming conventions, right, but it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, that's how they derived that thirty seven point whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they gave the Greeks their their credit. They get
Speaker 1: a shout out. They didn't call the meter the Paris
Speaker 1: Now anythink.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's true. That is everyone, of course, except for
Speaker 2: the United States, along with Liberia and meandmar that's a
Speaker 2: story for a different day, accepted these these conventions, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So to answer the question about the US and its
Speaker 1: fraud relationship with the metric system, we would like to
Speaker 1: share with you an incredibly popular legend travel back with us,
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. The US still has that new car smell,
Speaker 1: even though cars have not been invented yet.
Speaker 2: So as a result, this new nation under God, it's
Speaker 2: a bit of an shiit sa shoe w this. Every
Speaker 2: state agreed to be part of this new country. However,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of details to work out. Different
Speaker 2: parts of the country, different regions, had different identities, different
Speaker 2: perhaps opinions, different political leanings, and that also includes something
Speaker 2: as simple, seemingly a political as how to go about
Speaker 2: measuring things. So for some reason Thomas Jefferson was really
Speaker 2: vexed by this lack of continuity.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it was a real bug on his shoulder,
Speaker 1: and yeah it's a real crossbow is But you know,
Speaker 1: at the time of the American Revolution, these thirteen colonies
Speaker 1: more or less used a presently defunct English measuring system ounces, pounds, feet, miles.
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar to the present system in the United States,
Speaker 1: but it's not quite the same. So if you go
Speaker 1: to boffins like Keith Martin at the National Institute of
Speaker 1: Standards and Technology, you'll see that in New York, according
Speaker 1: to Keith, people were using Dutch measurement systems, makes sense,
Speaker 1: but in New England they were using English systems. The
Speaker 1: way things were measured literally changed from one state to
Speaker 1: the next, and as we can all imagine, that's not
Speaker 1: great for business. Here's the legend. The metric system, as
Speaker 1: we said, it emerges in France seventeen ninety one. Just
Speaker 1: a few years later, according to the story, old Tommy
Speaker 1: J who is now the Secretary of State. Hears about
Speaker 1: this new French system. He's intrigued. He says, maybe this
Speaker 1: will help solve America's measurement madness are phrased.
Speaker 2: His Yeah, it's sort of like reform madness, not as fun. No,
Speaker 2: revermads doesn't fun at all. Never mind, take that back.
Speaker 2: That was a really gnarly propaganda war against them.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's keep it. Listen, more people should know about
Speaker 1: reformatag Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm saying keep it. But it wasn't fun.
Speaker 1: Oh it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it might be. We read for madness.
Speaker 2: Everyone's walking up having a good time. No, that is
Speaker 2: not what it was. It was an absolute moral panic
Speaker 2: that was manufactured in order to other minorities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the main fear being misingenation. So weirdly enough, So okay.
Speaker 1: Tommy J. Writes to his colleagues, his fellow thought leaders
Speaker 1: over in France, and they hatch a plan. They're going
Speaker 1: to send a scientist, a botanist, an aristocrat, not three guys,
Speaker 1: all the same guy named Joseph Dombi. He's going to
Speaker 1: cross the Atlantic. He's going to visit Jefferson, and on
Speaker 1: his person he will have two strange artifacts, a rod
Speaker 1: that measures exactly a meter and a small copper cylinder.
Speaker 1: It's got a little handle on the top. It's about
Speaker 1: three inches tall, it's about three inches wide. It weighs
Speaker 1: exactly one kilogram. So the idea is that if Dombie
Speaker 1: can get over to the new United States and talk
Speaker 1: with Jefferson, then maybe they can they can get the
Speaker 1: US on board with this French ciss them. Unfortunately, Dombie's
Speaker 1: travels do.
Speaker 2: Not go well, No they don't. His ship passes through
Speaker 2: a massive storm in the Atlantic that blows the vessel
Speaker 2: far Afield, far south of the Mark into the Caribbean Sea.
Speaker 2: And the Caribbean was a particularly rough neighborhood populated by
Speaker 2: roving bands of British privateers aka more or less pirates.
Speaker 2: They weren't technically criminals, they were sort of these mercenaries
Speaker 2: of the sea right. However, they capitalized on their more
Speaker 2: or less lack of oversight from the British government and
Speaker 2: sort of had a bit of a carte blanche, a
Speaker 2: bit of a blank check to do whatever they wanted
Speaker 2: to whomever they wanted, because they controlled the high seas
Speaker 2: and they actually did have a bit of co sign
Speaker 2: for some of these nasty shenanigans. They were in fact
Speaker 2: encouraged by the British to harass, attack, and disrupt any
Speaker 2: perceived enemy ship lanes shipping activities.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, because let's keep in mind the British are
Speaker 1: still a little bit irritated that the United States is
Speaker 1: a thing not loving me. They're they're not feeling it,
Speaker 1: they're not vibing. So these pirates, in all but name,
Speaker 1: these privateers, they take over the ship that Dombie is
Speaker 1: on and they imprison him on an island that they control, Mansarrat,
Speaker 1: and they are thinking, Okay, this is a pretty fancy guy, right,
Speaker 1: he's clearly upper class. Let's ransom him, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, let's make a little coin. Unfortunately for the
Speaker 1: pirates and unfortunately for Domby, he dies in captivity. He
Speaker 1: never makes it to the US, which means that the
Speaker 1: rod and the cylinder, the meter and the kilogram don't
Speaker 1: make it there either.
Speaker 2: No, they don't. However, the pirates weren't interested in any
Speaker 2: of the objects that Dombi was carrying, uh So they
Speaker 2: were just auctioned off along with the rest of the
Speaker 2: goods aboard the ship. So the story goes if Danbie
Speaker 2: had not been let's just say, diverted by that storm
Speaker 2: and waylaid by the hooliganery of these mates and their crew,
Speaker 2: he may well have made it to Jefferson, and Jefferson
Speaker 2: would have actually done his razzle dazzle on Congress, and
Speaker 2: we all may well be full on metric heads today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fascinating tale, and I think it would
Speaker 1: be great for ridiculous history cinema. It's widely cited as
Speaker 1: a fact in any number of reputable US news sources,
Speaker 1: so not just more tabloidy stuff like the New York Posts,
Speaker 1: Sorry guys, that's true, but also things like the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: The question is, is this story, as our friend Law
Speaker 1: would say, is this the actual facts explanation for the
Speaker 1: US's metric system phobia? Are pirates? Genuinely the reason America
Speaker 1: doesn't mess with the metric system today.
Speaker 2: Have a little bit of an apocryphal vibe to it.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie right right, it feels like a
Speaker 2: legend kind of you know what I mean, the stuff
Speaker 2: of love legend. Absolutely a metric system needs one, right.
Speaker 1: We do know it is true that Dombie's ship was
Speaker 1: captured Dombi was a real person and at the time
Speaker 1: he was carrying these new measurement artifacts. We know that
Speaker 1: he did die in captivity. There are letters informing Jefferson
Speaker 1: about it, but the details and context of the time
Speaker 1: show us to your point, Nol, the story is not
Speaker 1: as cut and dried as as we would like to
Speaker 1: bust the myths here. We're going to get some help
Speaker 1: from our friends at Snopes.
Speaker 2: So Jefferson wasn't just intrigued by this new French system.
Speaker 2: He was already, as you would say, Ben ten Toes
Speaker 2: down with it on fixing America's measurement issue. So by
Speaker 2: in the seventeen ninety before the French system came into affect,
Speaker 2: Jefferson had already published and submitted to Congress a paper
Speaker 2: on the topic of uniform measurements. And the report, however,
Speaker 2: didn't really make it to the top of the stack.
Speaker 2: Let's just say it kind of got sidelined a bit,
Speaker 2: and as they call it in Hollywood, turnaround limbo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, languished in limbo. Pictured this way. So he pitched
Speaker 1: two different ideas for a uniform measurement system, and the
Speaker 1: second one, the one that he really liked, was base
Speaker 1: tend thing. It was. It was decimal. It was like
Speaker 1: the French system, like the metric system today. Everybody that
Speaker 1: he talked to about this, everybody they pitched on it,
Speaker 1: kind of said, oh yeah, no, good point, Tom, we
Speaker 1: gotta think about that one.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna put this right here on the
Speaker 1: fridge with the other drawings.
Speaker 2: We'll give you a gold star for exactly and give
Speaker 2: you a little bit of a participation award.
Speaker 1: Yeah. After the game was out of boys his back pats,
Speaker 1: everybody went on to do other things. Granted, at this
Speaker 1: point in history of the United States, there was still
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff they needed to do.
Speaker 2: For sure, early days, lots to be done. This consorted
Speaker 2: be seen as certainly not priority number one by the
Speaker 2: folks in charge. What happens to be a pet concern
Speaker 2: of mister Jefferson, as we mentioned.
Speaker 1: Right, like, is his passion project? Does he leave the
Speaker 1: room and people all roll their eyes and chefs.
Speaker 2: And again going on about the metric system.
Speaker 1: What does that guy do? Isn't he supposed to be
Speaker 1: Secretary of State?
Speaker 2: You guys, we need to rethink this whole situation a bit.
Speaker 1: It's like Elon musk and video games.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, man stuff, He's gonna come
Speaker 2: for you, Ben, He's gonna come for you.
Speaker 1: I'll have to try to do my best to doge it.
Speaker 2: Yes, dojan weave, Dojiah Weave. There we go.
Speaker 1: So the US didn't make any real progress toward unified
Speaker 1: measurement until decades later, the eighteen twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after continuous prompting and poking and prodding from Tomas Jefferson,
Speaker 2: like literally be like, hey, guys, them over here, look
Speaker 2: at me, remember me. We need to work this out.
Speaker 2: It's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so we can conclude it is highly likely.
Speaker 1: We can't prove this, but we can conclude that Dombie
Speaker 1: and piracy their role is somewhat overstated in the legend.
Speaker 1: It's very likely that even if Dombie arrived safely with
Speaker 1: his Chochke's in tow, the stalemate over measurements would have
Speaker 1: persisted because it wasn't that people couldn't think of a
Speaker 1: thing like the metric system. It was that no one really.
Speaker 2: Cared, right except Tommy Jay, who cared a lot. And
Speaker 2: can we also just say that, like it really seems
Speaker 2: apocryphal of this notion that you know, the items were
Speaker 2: the deal breaker, the staff and the whatever, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like, couldn't they just if it was
Speaker 2: really that important to them, they could have found something else,
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, yeah, and they could have worked it out, right,
Speaker 2: they could have figured it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so now we have to move to speaking
Speaker 1: the artifacts. Let's quote that question that you and I
Speaker 1: often get at the airport, what happened to our kilo?
Speaker 2: We do? It's weird. I don't know why people think
Speaker 2: the we're some sort of authority on this. It is
Speaker 2: our burden to bear and it is a heavy one.
Speaker 2: But God knows what system we should use to weigh it, right, right,
Speaker 2: We certainly don't. Maybe God does no comment FBI. Ultimately, though,
Speaker 2: we do know a little bit about these artifacts. That
Speaker 2: lost kilogram cylinder made it to America, eventually in the
Speaker 2: hands of an American land surveyor named Andrew Ellicott, and
Speaker 2: then it was passed down as a relic in the
Speaker 2: Elicott family all the way up to nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: And this is when a scion of the Ellicott family,
Speaker 2: Andrew Ellicott Douglas, he realizes what they have a piece
Speaker 2: of history. He's an astronom, and he doesn't try to
Speaker 2: make a buck off this or anything. He gives it
Speaker 2: to the agency that later becomes the National Institute of
Speaker 2: Standards and Technology or NIST NIST.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can we just take a quick moment to just
Speaker 2: talk about just the idea of standardization, like the what
Speaker 2: is so much less important than this, like this whole
Speaker 2: you know discussion, like what is the objects? Because at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, it's just about deciding and
Speaker 2: agreeing what the number is and what we use. So
Speaker 2: it's like whether it's this rod and this you know
Speaker 2: whatever pendance or whatever the crap these objects. It just
Speaker 2: seems kind of beside the point and sort of getting
Speaker 2: hung up on the wrong details. But I guess therein
Speaker 2: lies the conundrum of history and the politicization of seemingly
Speaker 2: benign things, right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And we also know, I think that point about consensus
Speaker 1: is really key here. We also know that the kilogram
Speaker 1: has been redefined over the decades. The version that Dambi
Speaker 1: was carrying that copper cylinder with a cute little handle,
Speaker 1: it was almost certainly not the same mass as what
Speaker 1: we consider the modern kilogram, which is a platinum iridium
Speaker 1: thing still stored in France. Now, that's what all kilograms
Speaker 1: and gram derivatives are based off.
Speaker 2: The France does to this day kind of hold a
Speaker 2: lot of prominence in the fields of science and education,
Speaker 2: like the Sarball and like certain institutions there. I mean,
Speaker 2: they are still held up very high and revered, you know,
Speaker 2: across the world, although it does seem that to some degree,
Speaker 2: the US still has sort of a weird little beef
Speaker 2: with France in terms of just attitude. You know, this
Speaker 2: is often a little bit of dismissiveness when you have
Speaker 2: certain folks talking about the French. Yeah, I love, I
Speaker 2: love the French. I love all of the history that
Speaker 2: we're talking about here. I think we're on the same
Speaker 2: page there, you know what I mean though, isn't an
Speaker 2: odd little kind of bit of not bigotry exactly, but
Speaker 2: sort of a little bit of an attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of a jocular animosity. It goes both ways too,
Speaker 1: you know. Every time that's a perfect example. Yeah, every
Speaker 1: time I'm hanging out in France. I've got some French
Speaker 1: national friends in Amsterdam. Get a little ribbing for being
Speaker 1: from the States. But I think I like to think
Speaker 1: it's well intentioned, and yeah, France is just amazing. The
Speaker 1: food is better that that stereotype is true. But like
Speaker 1: you're saying, the French American animosity aside, the United States
Speaker 1: still hasn't gone fully metric. You can see legally required
Speaker 1: metric conversions on all kinds of things, right like the
Speaker 1: speedometer of your vehicle, the ingredient list or serving sized list,
Speaker 1: and things you buy on the grocery store. But most
Speaker 1: people are going to be talking in terms of inches, feet, ounces, pounds.
Speaker 2: You know, could we take a minute and just talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about why metric is better than that
Speaker 2: what you just mentioned, Ben, what we use, like what
Speaker 2: there is it because of these sort of basis in science,
Speaker 2: The basis in like physical you know, understandable objects and
Speaker 2: feet and inches seems a little bit less so and
Speaker 2: maybe a bit more arbitrary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're I think you've kind of answered
Speaker 1: that right. It's easier to learn because it's a it's
Speaker 1: a decimal system, but it's got gradation. Yeah. It also
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't have some of the historical baggage
Speaker 1: that other measurement systems have, you know, like feet, miles, yards,
Speaker 1: those are just weird, right, And I think the biggest
Speaker 1: point now too, is regardless of which system a person
Speaker 1: may prefer individually, your point about consensus holds it is
Speaker 1: a matter of what everyone agrees on it. And the
Speaker 1: rest of the world said, tally ho, bully for the
Speaker 1: metric system. We've all finally agreed on at least this
Speaker 1: one thing, and the US said, nah, banana for scale.
Speaker 2: Whereas over here it's like the question like, how long
Speaker 2: is a yard I was the length of one yard stick?
Speaker 1: Right, right, right?
Speaker 2: Remember yardstick? That was very much a staple of elementary school.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm thinking about the yard stick now.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really come up much anymore. Can you even
Speaker 2: still buy yardsticks? Is that thing? Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could buy them. It's just I think they're
Speaker 1: less frequently seen in households.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not quite as antiquated as the rotary telephone,
Speaker 1: but it's getting there, you know what I mean. If
Speaker 1: you have a yard stick, the yard stick is probably
Speaker 1: old and you probably got it from what are your relatives?
Speaker 2: Now that being said, if we're talking about the UK,
Speaker 2: they have a quite different use of the term yard
Speaker 2: It is a measurement of ale, a quite massive boot size,
Speaker 2: you know, glass of ale, a yard a.
Speaker 1: Yard of ale. So we love nerding out on this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I think it's fair to say that
Speaker 1: we're fans of the metric system, but we are not
Speaker 1: measurement experts ourselves. So we were all Noel Maxima. We're
Speaker 1: all surprised to learn that the US has often had
Speaker 1: brushes with metric modernity. The mission of Tommy J. Continues apace.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty six, Congress did authorize the use of
Speaker 1: the metric system, and furthermore, they supplied every state with
Speaker 1: a set of standard metric weights and measures that every
Speaker 1: state apparently just.
Speaker 2: Ignored, yeah, completely. In eighteen seventy five, the United States
Speaker 2: signed the Convention do Meta Established It. That is a
Speaker 2: very interesting name for a United States treaty establishing an
Speaker 2: international body to maintain metric standards. In eighteen ninety three, however,
Speaker 2: all weights and measures used or defined with respect to
Speaker 2: metric standards. So a pound is officially defined as point
Speaker 2: four five three five nine two three seven kilograms, and
Speaker 2: which is why, yeah, exactly in one yard is point
Speaker 2: nine one four four meters.
Speaker 1: Again, come on, you know what I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like Thomas Jefferson difficult.
Speaker 2: Come on.
Speaker 1: So then there is in nineteen seventy five, and there's
Speaker 1: some great MPR pieces about this as well. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five there's the Metric Conversion Act. And the Metric
Speaker 1: Conversion Act is the one that is going to get
Speaker 1: us on the right path. They say, Look, per this Act,
Speaker 1: the US is going to use the metric system of
Speaker 1: measurement as our preferred system of weights and measures for
Speaker 1: all US trade and commerce. Cool dandy, jolly good, the
Speaker 1: public ignores once again.
Speaker 2: The Act was later amended by the Omnibus Foreign Trade
Speaker 2: and the Competitiveness Act that's a mouthful of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: These Savings in Construction Act of nineteen ninety six, and
Speaker 2: the Department of Energy High End Computing Revitalization Act of
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, which were all aimed at pushing
Speaker 2: the use of the metric system. However, each of these
Speaker 2: had their own varying degrees of success or lack thereof.
Speaker 1: Yeah, by which we mean no success exactly.
Speaker 2: It's rough.
Speaker 1: It's still you know. It's hold my yard of beer
Speaker 1: banana for scale all the livelong day here in the
Speaker 1: United States. We're not defending British privateers. We're not saying
Speaker 1: pirates are super funkadelic or whatever.
Speaker 2: But they're objectively pretty cool. The image of them is cool.
Speaker 2: They did some horrific atrocity, yes.
Speaker 1: And they were very dirty, but they also had systems
Speaker 1: of democracy that were streets ahead rights of the government
Speaker 1: or the governance you would see in official military vessels.
Speaker 2: What was that island that they had in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2: I want to say, we did an episode Tortuga Tortuga
Speaker 2: where they had like an excellent system of government that
Speaker 2: seemed to function quite well. Ben, this is your research brief,
Speaker 2: is it not? This is yeah, very very well done.
Speaker 2: And you end with you leave us with you keep
Speaker 2: making this reference to banana for scale. Let's go to
Speaker 2: this Language Nerds site article that you found, which is
Speaker 2: a series of fun kind of examples that show Americans
Speaker 2: will measure with anything but the metric system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are my favorites? And you can find all
Speaker 1: kinds of lists like this. Now that we've redeemed pirates,
Speaker 1: it's not their fault that the US is not on
Speaker 1: board with the metric system.
Speaker 2: They did, they were not They were naughty.
Speaker 1: They did capture probably kill that guy, but we wanted
Speaker 1: to spend just a little time Palin about having some
Speaker 1: fun with this weird notion that here in America we
Speaker 1: will use any kind of made up measurement system other
Speaker 1: than the metric system.
Speaker 2: It's a grudge thing. It's very weird. I don't think
Speaker 2: we fully unpacked that aspect. I think we've hinted at it,
Speaker 2: but I think it's still TBD as to where the
Speaker 2: long standing beef is. To your point about the pirates,
Speaker 2: we've sort of debunked that a little bit, but yet
Speaker 2: it continues this avoidance, this absolute rejection. It would seem
Speaker 2: culturally of the metric system. I think maybe the people
Speaker 2: think it's too European.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's it. I bet you there's some xenophobia wrapped up.
Speaker 1: There's probably just the inertia as well. Critical mass is
Speaker 1: a hell of a drug, yes, right. So. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite examples in this Language Nerds collection is a
Speaker 1: picture of a toilet bowl. There's a real avertisement and
Speaker 1: the picture of the comde you'll see a sign advertising
Speaker 1: this is real, it's accommodations. Yeah, it says flush is
Speaker 1: seven billiard balls in a single flush. Why can't you
Speaker 1: just say what it is in the metric system billiard
Speaker 1: ball sized poops? You know what, Maybe that's it.
Speaker 2: Those are some heavy poops, seriously, man, And can we
Speaker 2: also just take a moment to talk about just like
Speaker 2: the idea of the foot, like it's sort of the
Speaker 2: length of an average foot kind of human foot, but
Speaker 2: also not. It's just I don't know, using that term
Speaker 2: has always thrown me because one of these images you
Speaker 2: found in this article is that no measuring tape, no problem,
Speaker 2: your body will do approximately six feet two inches long.
Speaker 2: And once again a foot of a human is approximately
Speaker 2: the length of a foot of the measurements. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird too, because you know that opens the
Speaker 1: door for, like we were saying, arbitrary systems of measurements,
Speaker 1: where let's say the king says we're measured in feet
Speaker 1: and the foot is based on my foot, and then
Speaker 1: the king dies, right, we got a new king footing foot.
Speaker 1: Another way, a sinkhole roughly the size of six to
Speaker 1: seven washing machines or.
Speaker 2: Two to three Honda odyssees, two to three Honda odyssees.
Speaker 1: Oh, and then things like oh, this is the smallest mammal,
Speaker 1: the bumblebee bad weighs less than one coin.
Speaker 2: What's what coin? What denomination? What are you talking about? America? God,
Speaker 2: get off your high horse. We've got shop with space.
Speaker 2: Give everyone four hangars of distance. I wish I had
Speaker 2: that extra closet space. I think this is a callback
Speaker 2: to maybe COVID times, a clever use of COVID social
Speaker 2: distancing stickers, some of which you still see in like
Speaker 2: subway stations and train stations, et cetera, but using it
Speaker 2: as like an advertisement in hashtag in this together. Yes,
Speaker 2: shop with space and these hangars, though, I gotta say,
Speaker 2: ben are weirdly misshapen. These seem like it's absurdly squashed
Speaker 2: and long hangers.
Speaker 1: That's true. It feels like somebody got lazy in photoshop
Speaker 1: just a little bit. But they're they're doing their best,
Speaker 1: and they helpfully provide the real explanation of six feet,
Speaker 1: but they don't say the meters at all. They just
Speaker 1: have these four, as you said, deformed coat hangers. Give
Speaker 1: everyone four deformed coat hangers of distance.
Speaker 2: Got a great sweet from San Miguel's sheriff here describing
Speaker 2: a traffic what do you call it? Obstruction? Large boulder.
Speaker 2: The size of a small boulder is complete. What you
Speaker 2: could have at least had a large boulder the size
Speaker 2: of several small boulders still absurd, but at least a
Speaker 2: little better, because is it not just a small boulder
Speaker 2: at this point, it's completely blocking eastbound lane Highway one
Speaker 2: forty five? What the heck? Sam Miguel Sheriff.
Speaker 1: Adult deer are as tall as a bicycle. They weigh
Speaker 1: as much as eight hundred hamburgers.
Speaker 2: That's really helpful that by that I mean not helpful
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, yeah, I agree. We've got this helpful quote
Speaker 1: unquote helpful explanation explaining to the average person in the
Speaker 1: US how long six feet.
Speaker 2: Is, which is already like the medadness of this. His
Speaker 2: six feet is already absurd the concept, right, So now
Speaker 2: let's just measure it with other absurd things. We got
Speaker 2: roughly three clarinets, okay.
Speaker 1: M hm oh, one trombone if the slide is extended.
Speaker 2: Which is a very important caveat one flagpole but come on, now,
Speaker 2: that doesn't even make sense. What kind of flagpole one
Speaker 2: in the in the a school yard has way longer
Speaker 2: than six feet, taller than six feet? What are we
Speaker 2: talking like a color guard flagpole very unclear? Or one marimba, Oh,
Speaker 2: of course marimba, the marimba system and marimba's length, yes, okay,
Speaker 2: and then of course three trumpets.
Speaker 1: And then they've got one joke that might give you
Speaker 1: a chuckle. They say six feet is also the distance
Speaker 1: one trumpet player, leaving room for ego.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, trumpet players notoriously into themselves is I
Speaker 2: don't know about this. I don't know man Miles Davis was,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But also any musician at that level, no matter
Speaker 1: what they play, is going to be like that. Right.
Speaker 2: I've met some particularly cocky marimba players in my day.
Speaker 1: Really. Oh yeah, there's just something snooty about them.
Speaker 2: The worst.
Speaker 1: I will say, Okay, this is not a personality stereotype,
Speaker 1: but I will say, you've spent time in Nashville too.
Speaker 1: There is an aura about pedal steel players because it's yeah,
Speaker 1: especially the old timers. Yeah, they got a specific instrument
Speaker 1: that can be difficult to learn. And when you see
Speaker 1: Nashville is rife with beautiful music. When you see a
Speaker 1: banding together to play in Nashville, often the pedal steel
Speaker 1: guy kind of shows up at the last minute, does
Speaker 1: his bit and ghost because he's going to play for
Speaker 1: another band.
Speaker 2: Very true. It's a very hot commodity, the pedal steel player.
Speaker 2: Because to your point, Bent, it's not something that your
Speaker 2: average musician can just pick up from scratch. It definitely
Speaker 2: requires a certain set of skills. And why don't one
Speaker 2: for this last one bring it home to a flyer
Speaker 2: from our very own Explored Georgia organization. He's encouraging, you know,
Speaker 2: finding the outdoors here in the beautiful state of Georgia,
Speaker 2: which is in fact quite beautiful this time of year.
Speaker 2: Let's explore Georgia's safely once again social distancing. Let's stay
Speaker 2: six feet apart aka one deer's length. Fun fact, the
Speaker 2: white tailed deer is the official mammal of the state
Speaker 2: of Georgia.
Speaker 1: Beautiful. I've got to shut out one more please. It's
Speaker 1: from our friends at Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: At the State of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Yes, for ten years, Wisconsin has recycled three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five million pounds of electronics. That's the combined weight
Speaker 1: of the Eiffel Tower, ten blue whales, the Brooklyn Bridge,
Speaker 1: and five Statues of Liberty. They could have just used kilograms.
Speaker 2: They could have just said a ton, and if they
Speaker 2: wanted to be metric about it, they could have said
Speaker 2: a metric ton.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, one metric ton is a thousand kilograms.
Speaker 2: God, it makes sense. Whole numbers, guys, whole numbers, and.
Speaker 1: Everybody else just calls it a ton. But here in
Speaker 1: the US we call it a metric ton because.
Speaker 2: USA weird man, yeah weird. Still still can't quite wrap
Speaker 2: my head around it, but maybe it's not for us
Speaker 2: to understand. But Ben, thank you for this incredible research
Speaker 2: on this topic. I think we shed a lot of
Speaker 2: light on it, and as much as we made it even.
Speaker 1: Murkier, big big things of course, to our super producer
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, his biological bro Alex Williams, who composed.
Speaker 2: This track true, Chris Frasciotis and he's Jeff cot Here
Speaker 2: in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quiz or a j Bahamas,
Speaker 2: Jacob's the Puzzler.
Speaker 1: Rachel Big Spinach, Lance, the Rude Dudes, a ridiculous crime.
Speaker 1: We shouted out the twister just a second ago. I
Speaker 1: guess we'll do it one more time, may as well? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: shout out.
Speaker 2: We don't summon him Strickland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we can't say it three times.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: End the shows, the show, at the show.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next type books. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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