Former President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act 50 years ago. However, he did not make metric adoption mandatory, and the efforts fell flat. For a look at where metric measurements have ...

In 1975, the United States passed the Metric Conversion Act. The legislation was meant to slowly transition its units of measurement from feet and pounds to meters and kilograms, bringing the US up to ...

If the United States were more like the rest of the world, a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder might be known as the McDonald’s 113-Grammer, John Henry’s 9-pound hammer would be 4.08 kilograms, and any ...

Americans have long used diverse weights and measures, reflecting their diverse origins. From colonial times, converting from one unit to another was part of courses in commercial arithmetic. The ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American I’ve met a lot of people and learned a lot ...

Ever wondered what happened to our country’s conversion to the metric system? I did too. So, I did some digging and turned up some dead bodies in the process. Advertisement Article continues below ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- If someone built a monument to U.S. metric conversion, it could take the shape of a 2-liter bottle of pop. Funny, huh? Thirty years after the country went metric, and this is all ...

1 In late 1975, President Gerald Ford had a unique vision for making America great again. He wanted to embrace a French invention – one that Thomas Jefferson himself had championed. He wanted America ...