Pirates Plundered the Metric System, What Marsquakes Teach Us
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2021
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about the time pirates stopped the US from switching to the metric system; and new learnings about Mars’ interior.
The US once tried switching to the metric system, but got stopped by pirates by Steffie Drucker
- How Pirates Of The Caribbean Hijacked America’s Metric System. (2017, December 28). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system
- Kaplan, S. (2017). Pirates Are to Blame For Why The US Doesn’t Use The Metric System. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/pirates-are-to-blame-for-why-the-us-doesn-t-use-the-metric-system
- Esser, M. (2017, September 19). Pirates of the Caribbean (Metric Edition). NIST. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/pirates-caribbean-metric-edition
- Materese, R. (2016, December 23). Busting Myths about the Metric System. NIST. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/busting-myths-about-metric-system
We just learned a ton about the interior of Mars by Briana Brownell
- The anatomy of a planet. (2021, July 22). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/612165
- Hays, B. (2021, July 23). Insight data offers clues to Mars’ deep interior, formation in solar system. UPI; UPI. https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/07/23/marsquakes-insight-lander/9331627055442/
- NASA’s InSight Reveals the Deep Interior of Mars. (2021, July 22). Nasa.gov. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-insight-reveals-the-deep-interior-of-mars
- “Felt” Earthquakes = Ones That People Feel. (2018). Usgs.gov. https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hawaiian-volcano-observatory/felt-earthquakes
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/pirates-plundered-the-metric-system-what-marsquakes-teach-us
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from |
| 0:04.9 | Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you'll learn |
| 0:09.3 | about one of the weirdest reasons why the US doesn't use the metric system and what Mars |
| 0:14.8 | Quakes have helped us learn about the interior of Mars. Let's satisfy some |
| 0:19.1 | curiosity. You might have heard that the United States is one of three countries that doesn't use the metric system. |
| 0:27.0 | Well, first of all, your leader of COLA would like to have a word. |
| 0:31.0 | And second, even if we do use the metric system less than other |
| 0:35.2 | countries do, you shouldn't blame us. You should blame pirates. That's right, if it |
| 0:42.0 | weren't for pirates, Americans might be measuring everything in metric. |
| 0:46.7 | So first let me do some myth-busting. |
| 0:49.2 | Americans do use the metric system for tons of stuff besides chemistry class. I mean think |
| 0:55.9 | about it you buy wine in 750 milliliter bottles and you take medicine |
| 1:01.2 | dosed in milligrams. |
| 1:03.0 | All nations have adopted the metric system to some degree. |
| 1:07.0 | It would be more accurate to say that its use is more optional in America. |
| 1:11.0 | The United States officially adopted the metric system in 1893. |
| 1:17.0 | The government just never required anybody to use it. |
| 1:20.0 | But in the early days, America used a hodgepodge of different measurements, which made interstate |
| 1:26.2 | commerce chaotic. |
| 1:28.4 | So in the first ever State of the Union address in 1790, George Washington tasked Congress with adopting a standard measurement |
| 1:36.2 | system. At the time, the Secretary of State was Thomas Jefferson, and he was a fan of |
| 1:41.2 | France. He thought they had the system the US needed, so in 1794, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Warner Bros. Discovery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Warner Bros. Discovery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.