The country that landed men on the moon adopted the metric systems as the basis of its measures before most other countries and programmed its moon landing systems using metric.
The country is a metric country (see: Official definition of the US foot).
Its citizens, however, largely still roll coal measured by chains to the hogshead.
The previous moon thing is a joke and at least partially an explanation for "freedom units," which is a joking (I think) commentary about the citizenry's beliefs about "their freedoms," and somehow these freedoms translates to freedom from using the metric system when they roll coal along a couple furlongs of interstate (in a truck that contains only metric fasteners.)
If you're exposed to figures written in scientific notation, then learn scientific notation (it's not even hard, the number represents the number of zeros you'd write if you had to write it entirely: 5000 = 5⋅10³ / 5E3, 0,0003 = 3⋅10^-4).
As said above, it has nothing to do with the metric system anyway, it's just about dealing conveniently with very big or very tiny value (1⋅10^-9 meter is 3.9⋅10^-8 inch, no matter the unit you're using you'd be using scientific notation to express things that small instead of dealing with 8 or 9 zeros).
Thanks for the advice I never considered trying to learn scientific notation. I think the way the problem manifests in combination with the metric system is that the metric system seems to have an extra 1,000 that may or may not apply.
I think my particular problem is when dealing with electricity and physics.
I never once blamed the metric system and identified the problem as my in ability to comprehend values in scientific notation. I appreciate I shouldn't be so dumb and try to read about things I don't understand. It's a life long struggle.
I don't know what to say other than I have a hard time reading scientific notation and the metric system. The metric system seems to lend itself to large numbers that are small quantities on the human scale.
It always amuses me when I watch a machining video from someone using metric. I've just been exposed to too many US machinists and am much more familiar with "thous" and "tenths" but baffled by microns and 0.02mms.
The country is a metric country (see: Official definition of the US foot).
Its citizens, however, largely still roll coal measured by chains to the hogshead.