Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee announced Wednesday his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, and in his stump speech, his pushed for America to use the metric system.
“Let’s be bold — let’s join the rest of the world and go metric,” he said during his announcement.
If today’s presidential politics are giving you flashbacks to middle school geometry, here are some presidential examples in Metric and American measurements, and what life would be like in Lincoln Chafee’s America.
Ten things measured in both the American system and the metric system:
1. The Washington Monument is 555 feet and 5.125 inches tall, according to the National Parks Service. That’s 169.164 meters and 13.0175 cm tall.
2. If you were to drive from Des Moines, Iowa to Concord, New Hampshire, that’s a distance of 1,238 miles or 2064.79 kilometers. Likewise, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drove 1,964 miles from Chappaqua, New York to Monticello, Iowa, according to the Washington Post, a distance equivalent to 3131.783 kilometers.
3. The White House is 168 feet long, or 51.2 meters long, and its inhabitant President Barack Obama is 6 feet, 1 inches tall, or 1.85 meters tall.
4. The distance between the White House and the U.S. Capitol building, is 2.5 miles or 4.02336 kilometers.
5. Straight out of Iowa, an average bushel of Iowa corn is 56 pounds, according to the Iowa Corn Promotion Board/Iowa Corn Growers Association. That’s 25.4012 kilograms.
6. In the Oval Office, the iconic Resolute Desk is 72 inches in length, 48 inches in width and 38 inches in height, according to the White House. That’s 1.8288 meters, 1.2192 meters and .9652 meters respectively.
7. Let’s talk political party mascots. For Republicans, the average full-grown Asian elephant will grow to be about 2.25 to 5.5 tons, which is roughly 2,041 to 4,990 kilograms, according to National Geographic. For Democrats, the San Diego Zoo reports that donkeys will typically grow to be about 606 pounds, or 274 kilograms.
8. The faces of Mount Rushmore are 60 feet high, or 18.28 meters high — including George Washington’s nose, which is 21 feet long or 6.08 meters.
9. For the candidate on the go, the full size charter bus can be about 45 feet long, or 13.7 meters.
10. America itself is roughly 2,680 miles across, roughly 4,313 kilometers.
And just for a little more perspective, here are ten things that will change in Chafee’s America:
1. The new length of a football field: 91.44 meters
2. A gallon of milk = a 3.78 liters of milk (or will milk be sold in 2-liter bottles?)
3. No more Indy 500. Introducing the Indy 804.672.
4. Denver’s new nickname: The 1.6 kilometer-high city
5. Inch worm would be known a 2.5 centimeter worm.
6. The Quarter Pounder: Imagine ordering a 0.45 Kilogrammer with Cheese.
7. Goodbye to the 10-gallon hat. Cowboys will now be wearing 37.85 liter hats.
8. Hungry for a foot-long? You’ll have to start ordering a 0.3 meter-long sub.
9. Craving dessert? A pint the ice cream would be sold in 0.47 liters containers.
10. Fruit by the Foot = Fruit by the 0.3 Meters
