The United States of Ametrica Online Quiz | History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Although several Europeans called for a universal measurement system beginning in the 1600s, none came about till the aftermath of the French Revolution, when the people in France were willing to rid themselves of the old order and old and irrational modes of thinking. The new meter was determined over a period of six years, and equaled what measurement?

Answer: One ten-millionth of a quarter of the meridian going through Paris

The first definition of the meter was one-ten millionth of a quarter of the meridian (i.e. the length going from the North Pole to the equator) running through Paris. The Paris Meridian was, until 1884 (when Greenwich was agreed on internationally as the Prime Meridian), one of the most important meridians in the world alongside Greenwich and Antwerp. Pierre M�chain and Jean-Baptiste Delambre calculated the distance of one meter to within one millimeter using this definition, but it was never actually used for the metric system.

Before France adopted the metric system, it chose the International Prototype Metre - one of several platinum bars made during M�chain and Delambre's mission that closest matched their measurements. This was adopted on June 22, 1799, as the official meter, and France adopted the metric system on December 10 of the same year. As measurements became more precise, the definition underwent several changes, until it was eventually defined as the length travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.

2. France adopted the metric system in 1795, and began receiving delegates and scientists in order to sell the idea for international use. Since the French had helped America win the American Revolution just 12 years prior, one might assume the two would work together on this project, but what happened in 1794 to kindle hostilities between the two nations to the point that France did not invite an American delegation?

Answer: Jay Treaty

The War of the First Coalition began in 1792, pitting the French Republic against Britain (alongside many other nations) in yet another conflict. The newly-formed United States wanted to remain neutral, not wanting to be dragged into a costly war while still reeling from its revolution. To make sure this happened, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton went to London and negotiated the Jay Treaty, in which the US guaranteed payment of debts and Britain gave up multiple forts on the American frontier, paid impressed American ship owners reparations, and gave the United States the most favored nation trading status.

The United States also reaffirmed its neutrality in the conflict. France saw this as a budding alliance between its mortal enemy and a country it had helped free from them, and began impressing American merchant ships itself, as well as denying the chance for American dignitaries to visit Paris and learn about the metric system.

3. By the end of the US Civil War, France, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Romania, and Mexico had all adopted the metric system. President Andrew Johnson and Congress recognized this, and signed into law an act that did what?

Answer: Legally sanctioned using the metric system in contracts court proceedings

In 1866 the United States for the first time officially accepted that the metric system was a major measurement system. Before this time, all contracts had to use the imperial system; otherwise the courts did not officially have a means to recognize them under the law.

4. In 1875, France and the United States were on good enough terms that an American delegation was invited to the Metre Convention. The result of the convention was the Treaty of the Metre, which set up multiple international organizations pertaining to metrology. Which of these was NOT one of them?

Answer: International Organization of Legal Metrology

The International Organization of Legal Metrology was created in 1955 to help simplify international trade as related to metrology (the study of measurements). The other three are mainly ways for the members of the Metre Convention (as well as several members added later, such as the United States, which officially joined in 1878) to have formal meetings, while the International Committee for Weights and Measures also serves as an advisory body to the General Conference on Weights and Measures.

5. In 1893, Thomas Mendenhall was the head of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. After years of determining the imperial system was unstable, he issued the Mendenhall Order, which effectively put the USA on the metric system. How was this done?

Answer: It defined all imperial measures by metric equivalents

In the Constitution, only Congress is given the power to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures," but Thomas Mendenhall circumvented this rule by not changing the system by which the United States measured, but rather the definitions by which that system worked.

After the British Parliament burned down in 1834, records of the standards of length and mass were destroyed, leaving both Britain and the US without an official standard. Over the next sixty years studies showed that the imperial system was basically unfit for purpose (having been subject to significant variation over time), so the order, using the best capabilities of the time, defined a standard yard as 3600/3937 meters, and a pound as 0.4535924277 kilograms.

This remained in place until 1959, when major English-speaking countries changed those definitions to a yard being 0.9144 meters and a pound as 0.45359237 kilograms.

6. In 1971, the US Metric Study, conducted by the US National Bureau of Standards, released "A Metric America: A Decision Whose Time Has Come" after a 3-year investigation. It was presented to Congress with a proposed deadline of how many years before the United States would be fully metric?

Answer: 10 years

The US Metric Study studied consumers, businesses, labor organizations, and the government itself in order to determine the future of the metric system in the United States. It concluded that the USA would be fully metric at some point in the future, and saw no reason to delay the inevitable.

They proposed a 10-year conversion process, at which point they felt the country would be completely metric.

7. In response to the US Metric Study of 1971, Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975. Unfortunately for the study, one aspect of the law failed to make it effective. What was it?

Answer: It did not make metric conversion mandatory

While the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 did make the metric system "the preferred system of weights and measures for the United States trade and commerce", it did not make the conversion from imperial to metric mandatory. The generally apathetic response to the bill led to President Ronald Reagan abolishing the United States Metric Board in 1982 after just seven years. Later, the Metric Conversion Act of 1988 required federal agencies to use "the metric system of measurement in its procurements, grants, and other business-related activities" by 1992.

However, conversion of private businesses was still strictly voluntary.

8. Metric conversions in private industries took mainly two different routes - hard metric and soft metric. Hard metric industries converted virtually everything to metric, while those in soft metric used some metric, but retained much of the imperial system. What is an example of a hard metric industry?

Answer: Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical companies took the opportunity to convert virtually all of their packaging to metric. The original 1955 "Tylenol elixir", for example, was marketed in jars of � fluid ounces, while today it is measured in milliliters (some still have fluid ounces, but as this is an exception, pharmaceuticals are still a hard metric industry). Meanwhile, soft drinks are normally measured either in fluid ounces or liters with their conversion to milliliters alongside; and bicycles and carpentry used mixed measurements depending on the parts involved.

9. Despite the ineffectiveness of the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, Congress did want to introduce metric measurements to almost all packaging of consumer products. They passed the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, requiring contents of these goods to be labeled with both the imperial and metric systems. When was this law passed?

Answer: 1992

President Lyndon Johnson signed the original Fair Packaging and Labeling Act in 1966, but the new metric requirements were not passed until 1992. It stated "The net quantity of contents (in terms of weight or mass, measure, or numerical count) shall be separately and accurately stated... using the most appropriate units of both the customary inch/pound system of measure... (and) the SI metric system." While it applied to most goods, it did not apply to those products packaged at the retail store level.

10. One of the most infamous incidents in the imperial/metric confusion happened in 1999, when a NASA mission resulted in catastrophic failure because Lockheed Martin, a contractor for the mission, used pound force seconds instead of newton seconds. The spacecraft lost far too much altitude, and likely burned up in the atmosphere of what planet?

Answer: Mars

The Mars Climate Orbiter was launched in late 1998 to measure several components of the Martian atmosphere. Supposed to orbit the planet at roughly 150 kilometers, it dipped down to about 57 km from the surface, well below its minimum threshold of 80 km.

The mishap resulted in a $193 million loss according to NASA. Following the mission failure, Lorelle Young, president of the US Metric Assocation, said "Only the metric system should be used because that is the system science uses."

Source: Author illiniman14

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

The United States of Ametrica Trivia Quiz

Learn all the reasons behind and implications of the United States staying away from the metric system.

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>