I've been involved in a couple of discussions on communities about imperial vs. metric workspace.
Here's a good illustration about why we engineers outside of the US don't understand a thing.
Andreas, you're a star of clear writing, strangely rare in MS world. Please do more blogs!
Toss in litres per km vs miles per (US) gal - the entire US vehicle fleet will have to be reverse engineered! kW vs horsepower (an average carthorse can sustain 750W, an Olympic cyclist 120W, a 12ft diam x 1ft wide overshot waterwheel produces 1 horsepower - and would power an entire mill! (thanks to fantastic torque).
I can remember in Elementary School how we were taught that we (the US) would be going to the metric system and we needed to learn it. Now some 50 years later we are no closer to changing. Having used metric on past projects, I agree that it simply makes more since, which is IMHO why the US will never adopt it.
Toss in Young's Modulus, Avogadro's number, and BTUs while you are at it. :) Seriously, the whole thing is ridiculous... just like the old adage "Those who speak multiple languages are multi-lingual, those who speak two languages are bi-lingual, and those who speak one language are American."
Here's a link to the original location:
img.addfunny.com/.../usavsrestoftheworld.jpg