Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: Why isn't the U.S. on the metric system?

Episode Date: July 1, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, the U.S. stands proudly defiant and the world looks at Americans as dopes for the U.S.'s stubborn refusal to go metric. However, the States have been going metric for about 150 years. Find out what's the haps in this weighty and measured episode of SYSK. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everyone, it's me, Josh. And this week for SYSK Selects, I've picked, why isn't the US on the metric system? The big spoiler is this, it kind of is. So check it out.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And since we're together and there's some microphones present and Jerry's in the other room, this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right, yeah. There's a musty, dusty little hole.

I'm glad to be back in this room actually. Me too. Because we did these in another room for a little while. Again, just moving us around. Yeah, like we don't have a process or something. Yeah, what they do is they tie a yarn around one of the microphones and they just sort of drag it through the building

and we just chase after it like a little dumb puppy. Yeah, it works with dollar bills too. Yeah, dollar bills and microphones. So you doing okay? I am sleepy. Well that's good, because- We'll see what happens here. No one might put you all the way to sleep.

I was up all night. Yeah, this is gonna be fun. Are you hallucinating at all? Oh, I'm a little funky, so. Cool. Yeah, this should be good, numbers. This is history though, really. Yes, it is.

More than math. History, culture, anger. Yeah, Napoleon, for God's sakes. Yeah, yeah, we're talking about the metric system. Hey, hey. Hey. That makes sense to say that. Chuck, we've got this kind of meme

that's run through our podcast. Where we kind of make fun of the metric system. But we also go to the trouble of calling out the metric equivalents of whatever we're talking about with feet, usually. Sometimes. We're sort of at it. Like if we feel like doing it, we'll do it.

Yes, but we've done it enough so it's become a thing. Yeah. The metric system and us has become a thing. I thought it was high time that we got to the bottom of this whole big problem, which is the US is the only industrialized nation that isn't on the metric system, right? Fully on the metric system as a nation.

You did a great job with that, man. That is absolutely true. Like we're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have compulsory metric system usage. It's voluntary, but it's still pretty widespread. And if you go back and look at our law books, the law of the land, you will find that the metric system is very much entrenched in the US.

And so all these people who say the US isn't on the metric system, you're wrong largely. Yeah, look at your ruler there in your little three ring binder. Probably says centimeters and millimeters. That's metric. Right, but that's if you're in the US, if you're elsewhere outside of the US,

they just have centimeters and millimeters. Right, they don't throw the inch in there. No, the inch is so clean though. I love the inch. It is clean and it represents this legacy from so long ago when people used the width of a human man's thumb. Yeah, as a measurement and that was an inch.

And apparently there's some languages out there where inch and thumb are the same word. They're interchangeable. Yeah, I wondered about if, you know, obviously the article points out in the early days, like you said, they would use body parts. Yeah. Like, you know, what was the,

wouldn't like a forearm? A palm, palm. Yeah, a foot is what you think it is. Yeah, like people that had smaller of these, did they get ripped off in transactions slightly? Like I got a small thumb, like what are we gonna do? Right. Or do you bring along your buddy?

Do you hire the guy with the big thumbs? Be like, you're working for me in transactions. That's what they call the master blaster technique. That's where the heavy hitter came from. But yeah, so there's a certain kind of earthy colloquialism to the US customary system, which is what we use. Yeah. The inch, the foot.

An acre, an acre, did you know, is the average amount of land that a human with a team of oxen could plow in a day. That's where we got the acre from. That's cool. That makes sense at its root. The problem is, it's extraordinarily unscientific. Yeah, true.

Which is what the meter is. The metric system is extremely scientific. But it's got its roots fairly far back itself. It goes back to like 1670. Should we get into this? Let's talk about this. That was a great, robust intro. You feeling good?

Yeah. Okay, good. Thanks. So, like we said, for many, many years, as man evolved into smaller societies, into bigger and bigger ones, the thumb and the foot and the forearm and things like that was,

it's like it's getting a little crazy to handle all this. Right, especially if you're using a forearm over here, but this guy's using a neck. Yeah. And he's the neck. You both have swords. So as we formed larger societies, we thought, you know what, it's getting really confusing.

We got commerce going between various lands. We got to codify this. Right. Where do you say codify? I say codify. Oh, you do? While we agree on a pronunciation or something. So in France, things were just as confusing.

And by the time the French Revolution came around, they said, you know what, everything is all wackadoo. Charlemagne here has had a pretty good system in effect for a while. Let's just dive into this system that Paris uses. Well, yeah. The problem is Paris wasn't any more scientific than anybody else's.

But it was Paris. It was. And that was, I think, Louis the 16th that ordered some people to start looking into how to standardize measurements, because France had it worse than anybody. Well, yeah, because they thought it was a good idea, but he got more pushback than he thought

from the noble folk and so. So much so that they overthrew him. Yeah, and he said, well, yeah, and he said, you know what, let's convene here the Estates General, which was supposedly a group of an assembly of people from various classes to be all represented. And let's figure this out once and for all. Right.

And again, they overthrew the king. But along the way, they also adopted a systemized standard of measurements, which is based on this stuff devised by a monk back in 1670. Metric. Mouton. Well, Metric was the system. Right, but Metric comes from the Greek,

which means to measure, right? That's right. So Mouton came up with this idea that you should take, you should be able to create a standard unit of distance, of length, based on something that has to do with the earth. Just take it away from the humans. Humans come in all shapes and sizes. You need something that's going to be persistent.

Yeah. And let's say, say a degree. Persistent. Persistent. Okay. Like not only is it always there, it's in your face too. Okay, gotcha. So he was saying, let's use some sort of measure

of a degree of longitude, right? Yeah, which makes sense, because that had already been established. Yeah, so he kind of put this forth. He also said, and by the way, you should make it up, based on a decimal system. Very smart. A 10 base system.

Yeah. Base 10 system, which is very easy to divide and multiply by and. It's not arbitrary. Right, and base it all around this length, like everything, like volume, mass, all this stuff. Make sure it's around this one length. And he went and died, but his ideas lived on.

That's right. And so when the National Assembly really started to look into this system of measurement, they found Mouton's ideas were alive and well and pretty practical. Yeah, and they said, let's do this. And then they said, all right, if we're gonna do this, let's form a commission, form the commission,

and said, let's base it on these three principles that were established by Mouton. I don't think we said it was a mathematician, obviously. It was a mathematician and astronomer. I think they all were then, weren't they? Yeah. They kind of went hand in hand. It is better they made beer.

Yeah, exactly. Which meant there were also mathematicians and astronomers. Sure. So they had the three basic principles. It should be equal to a portion of the Earth's circumference. Okay. Which is, I get what they mean, but that would be any unit of length

that's smaller than the Earth's circumference. Yeah. I get what they're saying, though. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like anything, you could just arbitrarily pick any length and you could say it's based on the Earth's circumference. You could, but what they were saying was it has to be

a portion measured off of an already extant, like something we already know. Right. Take a portion of that. That could have been 80 miles, though. Sure, it could have been. But that would have made sense. No.

I digress. Number two, volume of mass, like you said, would be derived from length. So everything's going to be related to each other and you could figure it out mathematically. And everything's got to be multiplied or divided by 10 if you want to get something smaller or larger. Right.

A decimal system. Yeah. This is just brilliant genius stuff for a guy in 1670 to be coming up with. Sure. To have been adopted right away. But the French, when they really started looking at it, they figured out, OK, this is a pretty good system.

We're going to go with this. And those two guys started measuring from Barcelona, Spain, to Dunkirk, northern France. And they measured along this one line. And they came up with a quadrant of the circumference of the Earth, basically this meridian that ran through Paris from the North Pole to the equator. So it's a quarter of the circumference of the Earth.

And they figured out that a meter could conceivably be 1 10 millionth of that quadrant. So it's 1 10 millionth of the meridian that runs through Paris as it goes from the North Pole to the equator. That's the fact of the show for me. That's a meter. And also the fact of the show is that they decided how

to do it and to call it a meter. And then they went, well, I guess we need to figure out how long this thing is. Right. Like, I would have thought it would have been the other way around, but I guess it doesn't make sense. Like I said, it's arbitrary. Let's come up with a system and then say, all right,

that base unit of measurement, how long should that be? And also it's pretty nationalistic, too. It's this meridian that runs through Paris. Sure. So the metric system is an extremely French invention. That's right. Which is kind of one of the reasons you can go back and say that the US doesn't have it.

It's also one of the reasons a lot of the world does have it. Because after the French Revolution, Napoleon came to power. And Napoleon conquered a lot of lands. And he brought the metric system with him. Yeah. I mean, at this point, it was solid. I think it took five years for them to completely adopt it

or officially adopt it. And once you had the meter in place, you had everything else, because it was all based off the meter. Right. So they're humming along. And then, like you said, Napoleon says, I'm going to take the meter with me and conquer Europe.

And now everyone, all of a sudden, is gaining traction, the meter. And so across the pond in the US, at about the same time, right, the federal government was like, you know what? We need to. You can't have a country without a uniform system of measurements and weights and all that, because of commerce. Sure.

That's the basis of this whole thing. Oh, yeah. You'll be able to trade. Right. If you're just a little hunter-gatherer band and you're getting your own food, you need virtually no measurements or weights or anything like that.

If you start trading with another band, you want it to be fair, you suddenly need a system of measurements and weights. And then as that trade increases more and more, the need for that system of measurements and weights to be uniform around the world increases tremendously, right? Agreed. So the US assembles the colonies into states

and says we need to have some sort of uniform system of measurements. So Thomas Jefferson was the first guy to pick that up, right? I mean, it's in the Constitution. Yeah, previous to that, obviously, because they came from England, they used the British standard, the British imperial system, which was pretty antiquated. Yeah, but it still looks a lot like what we're using today.

Exactly. And like you said, they put it in the Constitution. What was it? Article 1, Section 8. And then TJ said, you know what? I like this decimal system. I think it's a good idea. But that means we've got to send these dudes over to France.

And we've got to find out. They've got to bring out their meter stick and show it to us. Yeah. And we've got to bring one back with us. Right. And it's really expensive. So let's just keep what we got for now. Yeah, and can we trust the French?

Do we need to have our own surveyors go make the same measurement and make sure that this isn't somehow like French-centric, Franco-centric, you know? Yeah. So he kind of backed off of the whole thing. There was also a big fear that like once Napoleon died down, that there was going to be a, there was- Metric backlash?

Yeah. That it would just kind of fall the wayside. Yeah, sure. Maybe we should wait and see. Like they thought it sort of like investing in Napoleon. Right. You know? And then who wants to do that?

Right. Nobody. Nobody. Round about the same time also, the French had supported the US during the Revolutionary War. And then after the Revolutionary War, the enemies, Great Britain and the United States, established a treaty called Jays Treaty in 1795.

And basically it said, hey, let's chill out a little bit. Let's see if we can get along. We're going to withdraw our troops from the Pacific Northwest. We the Brits. You Americans can start trading in the West Indies. And the French was like, what the heck? I thought we were in bed together. Yeah.

So what's going on? So all of a sudden there's hostilities between the French and the Americans. So much so that when the French held this big metric extravaganza to like debut it to the world. Yeah, it was pretty funny, I thought. Oh, what? Just to, you know, I mean it was necessary,

but it just, I could picture a convention center with like various styles of meter sticks and. Right, yeah. Here it is. But the US didn't get an invitation. Yeah, they got snubbed. So let's point that out again. The US didn't get an invitation when France was like the metric

system works, we're going to introduce to the rest of the world everybody come adopt this except for you guys because we're mad at you. Yeah, so I guess the ultimate question that we're answering in a roundabout way over this whole podcast is why isn't the US one of those countries? Yeah. Chalk this up as one of the early reasons.

Yeah. Well, they didn't want us to. They didn't invite us. Yeah. They said screw you guys. We'll go Metric and you do whatever you want with your little ruler. Right, and the US said we will.

We will, guys. We're going to, by this time, I think 1821, John Quincy Adams ordered a survey of all of the states and all the measurements and weights used in the states. And he said, you know what, this is uniform enough. We're going to stick with this. We're fine. Yeah.

We don't need this French invention. Paul Giamatti said no. Yeah. That was he believes John Adams, right? Yeah. OK. However, as we said, the metric system throughout the rest of the world, despite the fact that Napoleon went bye bye,

the metric system caught on enough, and it wasn't just tied to him. And the US was like, man, everyone has really gotten on this metric thing. We might have missed the boat a little bit. Right. And is that a problem? So in 1866, Andrew Johnson said, you know what?

I'm going to sign into law that is lawful in the United States to employ the weights and measures of the metric system and all of our contracts and dealings and court proceedings. Like the government standard. Right. Exactly. He said, like, if somebody uses the metric system in a contract with you, that's legal now.

So right there, the US just legally adopted the metric system. Yep. The big loophole was it's not compulsory right there. That's right. If somebody wants to, it's legal, right? That's right. Which is kind of funny because that added to this already cluster of the US customary system.

Well, there's like 300 different units. Yeah. A lot of stuff are the same, they have the same name. There's nine different kinds of tons. I know. Did you know that? Yeah. There's the short ton, which you never

want to get your hands on if you're looking for a full ton. That's right. The displacement ton, the refrigeration ton, the nuclear ton, the registered ton, the metric ton, the essay ton, and the ton of coal equivalent, Chuck. That is a ton of tons. It is. But now, the metric system has just kind of poked its head

in under US law. And it's now entrenched. It's made its first foray into the US. That's right. Flash forward another nine or 10 years. Yeah. 1875, another special assembly in Paris. Yeah.

Said we're going to bring together 17 nations. And you know what? US, get your butt over here. Yeah. Come on. They're like, all right, we'll come. Come on, you. OK.

Don't be mad. Will you pay our way? They said no. So they went over and signed the Treaty of the Meter, which is a real thing, set up the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and the General Conference on Weights and Measures to consider and adopt changes over the years. And also said, you know what?

If we're going to establish this meter, we need to set up a lab where they keep all this stuff in their official form. In case, I guess, like the Seed Vault, in case the world ever goes to pot, we get that meter stick in this closet here. Right. And they actually did have a meter stick. It was the International Prototype Meter, right?

It's so funny. And it was a. You have to do it, though. Yeah, it's silly to me. But yeah. This is the meter. And this is the one that all are measured from. And it's housed in this area, this office in Sevres.

Yeah, I thought it was buried beneath a crypt in the catacombs of the Louvre. Is it? No, I'm just kidding. Because that seems like something the French would do with their original meter. Yeah, Tom Hanks would have found it, though. Oh, I got you.

So they did have that. They had the meter. They also had the International Prototype Kilometer. Yeah, they had a mile on the kilogram. And that's made of iridium and platinum. Kept in an airtight jar. And it is the kilogram, everything else is measured off of. So they made copies of all these.

And all the countries that ratified the Treaty of the Meter got copies of their own. And the US got their own in 1890. So the US is going metric crazy now, especially because of this guy named Mendal, right? T.C. Mendenhall. Mendenhall. He was the superintendent of weights and measures.

And the Mendenhall order of 1893 said, you know what, we're going to establish our fundamental standards for length and mass on these metric units. We'll call it a yard. But a yard is, eventually, they settled on 0.9144 meters. Right, and a pound equals 0.45359237 kilograms. So think about this. This is huge.

T.C. Mendenhall changed everything with this Mendenhall order. We still use the pound inch system, the US custom rate system, but it's defined by the metric system. Yeah, the SI system. Right. I don't think we mentioned that yet. Well, they haven't changed it over to that yet.

Oh, they haven't changed the name. We're still on the metric system of this. Just gave it spoiler alert. But think about that. That's huge. So it's kind of like, all right, everybody's talking here. But if you go beneath the surface just one more level, the US is operating on the metric system.

Yeah. That's how we define everything. 120 years. Yeah. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

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we are on the metric system. We just call it miles and inches. Right. So about this time, there's like this kind of metric fever that's sweeping the US. And then Men In Hall dies. And it kind of dies with him. Metric fever might be overstating it.

No, there were penance and t-shirts. Oh, were there? Oh, yeah. No, actually, that didn't come until the 70s. But before, so Men In Hall dies, metric fever kind of dies out a little bit. And then part of that treaty of the meter, Chuck, was that there was a conference established,

a conference on this metric system, where they would meet and adopt changes and sit around and measure things. Yeah, it's cool because they weren't like, this is a perfect system. It never needs to change. They figured out ways to improve it over the years. And in 1960, a huge change came down,

where they stopped tying and defining the metric measures of the metric units of measure to the original things, like the Meridian 10 millionth. Instead, they tied it to immutable laws of the universe that made it even more precise, man. Yeah, and this was mainly done because of science. Science demanded a tighter and more refined system. Right, exactly.

So now, a meter is no longer defined as one 10 millionth of the Meridian that runs through Paris as it travels from the North Pole to the equator. A meter is the distance traveled by light in a vacuum and one 299,792,458th of a second. That's a meter. Right, or they just say a meter is this thing,

and they hold out the meter stick. Well, they still have the kilogram. It's the mass of the international prototype kilogram, but still, that is still, it's the only one that's still tied to it. But like a second, that's another metric standard that we use here in the US, you didn't notice. So the time it takes an atom of cesium-133

to vacillate, 9,192,631,770 times between two hyperfine levels of its ground state. That's pretty good. So basically, what they did was the meter became even more scientific. The metric system became so scientific that they stopped calling it the metric system. They called it the SI, the international standard, right?

Yeah, they could have gone the other way. They could have gotten less scientific. It would have been more fun, I think. Well, that's kind of the thing. And I think that it's like, yes, it helps science tremendously, but it also, it's going further away from that customary stuff that we use here, the thumb inch. Now it's cesium-133 atoms vacillating.

And it's more scientific, and it's less human. It's just more precise. Yeah, which is good for everybody. It is. They also added a lot of, in 1960, instead of just millimeters or meters or kilometers, they also added a lot more prefixes, like nanometer. Yeah.

There's now a picometer, which is a trillionth of a meter. Is that the smallest? Yeah, so far. Wow. Because a nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Jeez. Yeah. All right, so are we back to the US?

Yeah, so 1960, things changed. That's the point of all this. I'm sorry about that. That was great. The point was, is like, the meters is kind of there hanging out, and then bam, they expand it and make it way more scientific. It comes back like gangbusters. It does.

And it took about close to 50 years from the time Mendenhall died in 1924 to 1971, when the US National Bureau of Standards wrote a report called A Metric America. And obviously, I was born in 1971, I don't remember that. But I remember the following 10 years, which was the recommendation for the transition. He said, let's try and do this over the next decade. So I remember, as a young child, the big push.

It was a very big deal. It's always in the news. We're going metric. We're going metric. Congress enacted the Metric Conversion Act in 75, but said, you know what, this 10-year deadline should be voluntary, again, still not compulsory, which is yet another reason why we didn't fully go metric.

I guess they had their reasons, but they said, let's not make this a compulsory thing. It smelled pretty Canadian, I think, to Americans. And a lot of people were resisted. Right. So globalization increases. We're doing more and more business with more and more nations around the world.

American companies found themselves, maybe at a disadvantage, or at least challenged, to keep up because they're still converting things and trying to get their trade partners to convert, or at least we'll do the math for you. But know that when you're getting pounds, it's this much in kilograms. I mean, your packaging products, say, in Arkansas

that are being sold in Florida, but they're also being sold in Dunkirk. Right. And you need to have two different packaging. That's expensive and stupid. That makes you less competitive globally. That's true. So this Metric Conversion Act in 1988, there were amendments

passed saying, you know what, let's go ahead and call this the preferred system of weights and measurements for trade and commerce. So we inched a little further along. A little inch further along, or a millimeter further along. Inched. OK. And then they said the federal agencies

are going to have to use this system for procurements, for grants, for business. By the end of 1992, it's going to be our government standard. But that loophole was still there. If you were not a government agency, it was up to your discretion whether you wanted to go metric or not. Yep, if you're a private business, it's up to you.

You can still ship by the pound if you want. Right. So that whole thing came into effect by 1992, and the US government was officially metric, right? Yes. Some industries in the US took the opportunity to go metric too. Like the pharmaceutical industry went hard metric, which means it went all metric.

Say like the beverage industry went soft metric. Sad. Which is why you can see fluid ounces and milliliters right next to another living in harmony on your can of soda. That's right. Tools are metric, bicycles. Tools are metric and standard, though. Yeah, that's true.

That's true, very good point. Film, remember that stuff? Yeah. Film was metric. Yeah. I hate saying was. It still exists. 35 millimeter, 70 millimeter.

Eight millimeter? Yeah, yeah. Super 16, my favorite. 16 millimeter. And now, of course, it's all just on a digital card, SD card. Right, an inch long SD card. That was funny when we, sidebar here, when we were shooting our TV show, there's a tradition

in which when you shoot your 100th roll of film, you pop some champagne on set. And we did that, and I was like, how do you know? Yeah. We're not shooting rolls of film. Apparently, there's some conversion that camera guys know that this is the equivalent of our 100th roll of film. So, Lance, the…

Camera operator, yeah. Yes, okay. Extraordinaire. Extraordinaire. He was explaining all this to me, but I didn't realize that he was saying, this isn't a metaphorical champagne thing. Right.

Like, there's champagne in the other room, and go get some, Josh. I was like, oh, thanks for explaining, and walked away. And then I see everybody else kind of buzzed, and I'm like, I didn't get any champagne. Didn't this whole product? No, I had no idea. Where were you?

That was metaphorical. I went off to my dressing room. Oh, okay. It's like we were all standing around drinking champagne. I had no idea. I bet Lance was sweet about it. He was, but at the same time, I was like, why is Lance looking at me weird while I'm walking away?

All right. So, as of now, some people estimate about 30% of American manufacturer products and companies have gone metric, not too bad. But the public at large has still pushed back for a few reasons, cost being one of them. It's expensive to change all these documents and change your company over to metric.

I think NASA said it would cost $370 million to change all of our drawings and tens of thousands, I'm sorry, thousands of man hours. Just for the space shuttle. Yeah. And man, am I glad they didn't go to the trouble doing that. Yes, seriously. What a waste.

So money is one thing. You can't just jump to the metric system overnight. But you can also make a case, if I may interrupt Chuck, that money can also be saved using NASA as an example also. In 1999, NASA lost its Mars climate orbiter because the attitude control system was on our imperial system, our US customary system, right? It inches that kind of thing.

But the navigation system guiding the thing was on the metric system, or the SI system. That's where you get screwed. And there was a discrepancy, and it flew too close to the planet, overheated, and is now just $125 million space junk. Wow, they couldn't figure that out? They thought they had probably.

I guess, or else they just didn't think of it, or I bet they thought of it. They thought it was probably an error. And the author of this article points out that stubbornness and individualism is another reason Americans have it, especially if it's the French that are pushing it on us. Right, exactly.

I don't know about that. A while, I don't know how it first came up whenever we talked about the metric system. But years ago, somebody who listens to us named Amy Wang sent in her graduate thesis for design school, and it's called Imetrica. Do you remember that? I do remember that.

So I looked it up again. And apparently, it was this whole thing of basically putting metric things into normal everyday things in metric terms. So your coffee mug would say, this has this many milliliters in it, or a taxicab, the little signs they have on the roof. I saw one where it's driving, and it

shows how fast it's going in kilometers per hour. So what are these? Like any bystanders? Little things to just slowly convert people to the idea. Yeah. And is this something that, there's a thesis on like this is a proposal

that we should try and do? I think so. Yeah, something like that. That makes sense. I don't know if it's gone anywhere. I think there's some validity to that as far as Americans go. You would have to, we don't like things being pushed on us, which is probably why they always made it up to you.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Either that or business interests were like just take away that compulsory part. And then just kind of sneak it in little by little over the years. Although is it a big deal anymore?

Yeah, I think ultimately like we can kiss the US customary system goodbye. You think? I think so, sure. I mean like it's that whole globalization thing. Yeah. And if the business interests were the ones holding it back before, then they're going to be the ones driving it now.

They're like, let's just go to metric. It's going to make everything way better. Did you ever see the deal with Minimar and Liberia? Why they're the other two? No, Liberia I imagine would be because it was originally a US colony. That's what I was about to say because of us. I don't know about Minimar at all.

I have no idea why they wouldn't be. Malamars? Right. Delicious. Yeah. Let's see, you got anything else? I got nothing else. So the answer is check the US is pretty much on the metric system.

Yeah. Just not 100%. That's right. We got a lot of it. A lot of it. OK. If you start looking around for things that have meters and milliliters and liters,

you're going to see a lot of it here. Right. Just open your eyes, man. That's right. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

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Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to know more about the metric system,

we've got a couple of things on the website about it. Pretty interesting stuff. Just type metric system into the handysearchpart, howstuffworks.com. And I said handysearchpart, which means it's time for listener mail. How should I call this? You inspired someone to do something different in their life.

Oh, good. Hey guys, thought I'd never be writing in, but I thought you should know this. I've been listening for a while, love your podcast, listened to them while I do my homework to make it a little less tedious. So I live in Anchorage, Alaska, and go to high school there. Recently, I've been introduced to a certain program

called Rotary. This program, among other things, sends and receives students looking to study abroad. I would just like to say that you guys have really inspired me to participate in this program the next academic year. I was always so consumed with trying to be normal, even though I never really was. Such a common experience, I know.

But since I have started listening to your guys' podcast, I have come to realize how much I don't know and have to learn. I've had quite a time watching and listening to people who are smart, cultured, and eloquent, like John Stewart, for example, who I love, and I do too. I was considering saying that. That was her. But it's us.

OK, right? Of course you like John Stewart. Sure. OK, I didn't want to speak for you. You guys share the same qualities. Wow, how about that? We share qualities with John Stewart. I don't buy that.

You don't? All right, I love the idea of becoming a better person purely through the appreciation of knowledge. I'm hoping that my trip next year will be an eye-opener since I live in such a cut-off environment up here in Alaska, not that I'm complaining. Also, I hope it will prepare me for going into the Peace Corps. It's a civil engineer.

Man, that's awesome. I probably would not have had the courage to sign up for this stuff myself and deliver broad for a whole year if it wasn't for you guys and your podcast. I won't know where I'm going until December, or which language I'll have to learn. Some of the options are places like Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, or Turkey.

Those are all great. Yeah. Turkey. You're not a Turkey fan? I'm just getting parts of Turkey beautiful. I'm really glad that I am pushing myself. We had that Turkish guy that wrote in, remember? Yeah.

After we bagged on Turkey and he sent the pictures, like, what do you think of this? Yeah. Look at these topless beaches. Didn't he win something? Didn't he win that is all? Oh, maybe so. Did we ever send that to him?

I can't remember. Yes, we did, is the answer. OK. I'm really glad that I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone enough to do this, guys. I'm so excited. Thank you very much. Maybe I'll send you a postcard while I'm there.

And that is from Sydney. That is fantastic, Sydney. We take full credit for pushing you to do this so long as you have a triumphant and successful return. If anything happens to you, we have never heard of you. But congratulations on that. That's pretty awesome and huge. And thanks for writing in and letting us know that.

Let's see. What do you got? I don't know. What are some other things that America's been stubborn about? Oh, that's a good one, Chuck. Man, that's a good one. Examples of American stubbornness, we want to hear. You can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast.

You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send us a good old-fashioned email to stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses

and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life.

Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.