Read more: https://shannonselin.com/2017/10/john-quincy-adams-report-upon-weights-and-measures/
TIL to decide what measurement system America should use, John Quincy Adams took 3 1/2 years to produce a 268 page Report on Weights and Measures that ultimately concluded changing to the French metric system would be too difficult for the young nation. Congress took no action on the report.
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Literally everyone that contracts for the federal government should bow to the master of wasting time and money.
Well played, JQA.
The only president to serve in Congress after his presidential term. He was a great lawyer, a great Secretary of State, a great Congressman, and a crappy president.
Yes. Think about the present instead of the future. Foolproof method.
Answer these questions without looking them up:
1. How many feet in a mile?
2. What temp in Farenheit does water boil?
3. How many ounces in 15 pounds?
4. How many square feet in an acre?
Yeah we probably shoulda switched 😆
Were you inspired by [this post](https://reddit.com/comments/10lzicz) from earlier today?
Freedom fractions FTW!!!!
IIRC, he took no payment for the report. It was a passion project.
He did most of the research on his own time, which is one of the reasons it took so long, and he honestly thought it would be his literary legacy, which is why it was so unnecessarily detailed.