Cultural Impact
The continuing use of U.S. customary units has been a cause for speculation in fiction set in the future. Many authors of such works of fiction have assumed that the United States and the human race in general will use metric units in the future; however, some have assumed the continued use of U.S. customary units or have neglected to take metrication into account. Additionally, writers will sometimes use customary units simply because American readers and watchers will understand the measurements; other times, they are simply used by accident. The 1966 show Star Trek, for instance, initially used U.S. customary units despite multiple Earth national origins and a setting in the 23rd century. Later, starting with "The Changeling", metric measures were used, albeit inconsistently. Later sequels of the show, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, used the metric system exclusively.
Both the metric system and attitudes in the U.S. toward the metric system are a target of humorous jabs in shows such as The Simpsons, Futurama and The Big Bang Theory. A Saturday Night Live sketch titled "Decabet," released at the height of the metrication movement, lampooned the different metric measurements by introducing a new alphabet consisting of only ten letters.
In the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) tells Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) that "Europe is a little different", because for example in Paris, they don't call it a "Quarter Pounder with Cheese" but a "Royale with Cheese" as "they've got the metric system, they don't know what (...) a Quarter Pounder is". Later, Jules compliments the smartness of one of their victims, because he knows they don't call it a "Quarter Pounder" in France "because of the metric system".
Popular Science's September 2003 edition listed NIST's "Metric System Advocate" on its list of "Worst Jobs in Science".
Read more about this topic: Metrication In The United States
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