Metric conversion: Why poet Michael Hofmann stopped 'wreaking destruction' on his family in verse Michael Hofmann made his name with poems documenting his fraught relationship with his German father.

Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie Back in the 1970s, the Metric Conversion Board (since subsumed by CSIRO), showing an unexpected sense of humour, stated that converting time would take a "gigawhile".

Anyone who grew up in the 1970s, as John Bemelmans Marciano did, was immersed in talk of abandoning this archaic system and replacing it with the pristine beauty of metric measures.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act into law. It made metric the “preferred” system, though using it was strictly voluntary.

Units of length can be converted between imperial and metric units using unit conversions. If you need to use an imperial to metric conversion in an exam, the values will be given to you.