MM to M

1 millimeter = 0.001 meters.  And there you have it; how to convert mm to m.  But wait, there's more.  You didn't think I would leave you with the answer to a simple question without going on drawn-out explanation of measurements, did you?  Let's talk about the meter and all it's glory.  How exciting!

The meter (or metre in other countries) is identified by the symbol m.  It is the base unit of length for the International System of Units.  It has been defined as the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum.  This is 1/299,792,458 of a second.  Good to know.

To make things a little easier for those of us that don't know much about measurements, 1 meter is equal to about 3.28 feet.  In football, a meter is a little more than a yard.  Speaking of football, hopefully that will be starting soon if they can sort out this whole lockout mess.  Then there will actually be something to do in the fall on Sundays, God willing.

Okay, back to the meter.  The name meter was first recorded in 1668 by an English philosopher named John Wilkins.  Everyone in England before the 20th century was apparently a philosopher.  You were either a person that got water from a well or you were a philosopher.  How come there are no philosophers today?  You never here about some English guy making things up and then being referred to as a philosopher.  Maybe it was easier to make things up back then.  Back the, you were called a philosopher.  Today, you are called crazy and are most likely homeless.  My how the times have changed.

There are two ways to spell the word "meter."  All countries that speak English, except for the USA, use the spelling of metre.  America uses meter because it just makes more sense to them and doesn't sound to European.  The 2006 brochure for the International System of Units has the word spelled as metre in the English translation in an attempt to make the system more universally accepted.  It is common to see both spellings in America, but it is usually meter.  The United States Government Printing Office Style Manual uses meter as their spelling, and that's what the 2008 U.S. English translation of the U.D. National Institute of Standards and Technology also uses meter.  When you see things like parking meters and speedometers in cars, you see meter as the spelling.  The word comes from metre, but it is spelled the normal way.  Metre makes things look European, and that isn't always a good thing.  Sometimes it is, but not usually.  People might think you are Euro trash or something.

The Metric System

The metric system is a pain.  The metric system isn't usually used as much in the U.S.  We use the standard or imperial system.  There are those that want to convert the U.S. to the metric system, but that isn't going to happen.  To some, the metric system is the tool of the devil.  "My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."

Many people are opposed to the metric system.  The metric system has spread across the globe for the past couple hundred years and there are those that want it to stop.  There are only three countries in the world that have not officially adopted the metric system, and one of them is the United States.  Good for us not conforming to what the rest of the world does, because the rest of the world can be kind of stupid sometimes.  The metric system and its conversions can be confusing to people that are so used to the old style.  The country of Guyana has tried to adopt the metric system every three to five years, but the initiative has been unsuccessful each time.  In the United Kingdom, there is a mix of metric and imperial measurements.  Driver location signs are metric while most other measurements are standard.  There is also metric with supplementary standard units.

The metric system is a lot harder to understand when compared to the standard system of measurement.  Why anyone would want to switch is surprising.  The system we have now works just fine.  Just because all the other countries are doing it doesn't mean America does.  Last time I checked, America was still the best and most powerful nation in the world, so maybe we're doing something right.  Do we want to be like all the war-torn countries that have become disaster areas?  While you can't blame the metric system for those things, you can try.  The metric system is responsible for all of the wars for the last 20 years.  Japan bombed Peal Harbor because America wouldn't convert to the metric system.  9/11 happened because Osama bin Laden wanted America to convert to the metric system and they wouldn't.  The war on terror might as well be called the war on the metric system.  Everything bad that ever happened to anyone was the result of the metric system and all of its evils.

While none of the above is actually true, there are some that seem to think the metric system is that bad.  To the rest of us, we really don't care.  We learn about measurements in school, but we mostly forget everything by the time we become adults, unless measuring is a part of our jobs.  Plus, everything is labeled, so it's not like you have to know a whole lot.  The biggest difference is miles per hour and kilometers per hour.  Car in the U.S. have speedometers that use standard mph units.  Cars from Canada use kilometers.  It's weird because the speed limits here are posted as mph.

The U.S. probably won't go to the metric system anytime soon, so we don't really have to worry about that.  There is probably a better chance of everyone speaking Spanish instead of English, and that's not happening.  At least, hopefully it isn't.  This is America.