Why did the British invent the imperial system and then abandon it?
In: Economics
It hasn’t been abandoned. We still measure human height in feet and inches, our road distances in miles and speeds in miles per hour, our race courses in furlongs (and some of the prizes thereon in guineas), our beer in pints, and (for some of us at least) our sausages in pounds. The penalty spot on every football pitch in the world is still 12 yards away from a goal which is 8 yards wide and 8 feet high, and the wickets on every cricket pitch a chain apart. And we still inch toward our goals as we try to fathom the meaning of life.
Just because we have been forced to accept standardisation to the arbitrary and abstract SI system for the sake of trading and doing science with the arithmetically challenged rest of the world does not mean that we have turned our backs on the rational human scales of proper measurement gifted to us by our wise ancestors.
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