Excellent, John! This is a well-written letter. Hopefully with enough
drops of water we can turn this pothole into a scenic canyon. The
Smithsonian magazine is another favorite, old target of mine and if
you're a subscriber (I dropped them in protest) I urge you to write a
similar letter to them.
Jim
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, John Tauxe wrote:
> Dear Editors of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC -
>
> The map and other images of Mars in your most recent issue are stunning,
> and I was entranced as I explored the red planet through these images and
> the accompanying story. The article suffered from one drawback, however,
> in its presentation of units of distance and other measures. Undoubtedly,
> all the science and geography surrounding the images is done in metric
> units, yet NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC felt compelled to present units in the
> archaic customary system of feet, miles, etc. Fortunately, the map had
> metric units printed on it, but only in a secondary position to feet and miles.
>
> NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC is a magazine of international stature, and I feel that
> you owe it to your international readers, as well as your U.S. readership,
> to adopt a more progressive stance in metrication. Your current practice
> allows the U.S. readership a certain laziness in proceeding with
> metrication, and promotes their metric illiteracy. In the name of
> education, and in the spirit of international communication, I urge you to
> adopt a policy of presenting metric units (and preferably strict SI, the
> international system of units) to your readers.
>
> And keep up your standards in the fine art of cartography!
>
> - John Tauxe, PhD, PE
> Los Alamos, New Mexico
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
