2002-11-06
These types of statements that may seem harmless to
some of us can be picked up by the anti-metric crowd and by the average man and
woman on the street who know nothing about the present definition of the meter
and how precise that standard is.
Prof. Ken Alder turned a
200-year-old FOLLY into fortune with his new book
-- and he's getting good reviews to boot
His discovery that the two Frenchmen who
standardised the length of a meter made mistakes in their
calculations was made public -- 200 years late -- in his second
book, "The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden
Error that Transformed the
World."
But errors, which they hid, stopped the astronomers from reaching a perfect calculation. Alder discovered this in historical archives, and the revelation became the basis for his examination of the social, political and scientific implications of margins of error.
If I was Joe six-pack and was uncertain about anything metric, I would be convinced by such statements that metrication is a bad thing because WE would be adopting a measurement system full of errors. It is made to appear that the whole world except the US has fallen victim to the metric folly.
This is bad publicity for metric.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nat Hager III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, 2002-11-06 17:12
Subject: [USMA:23135] The Daily Northwestern - The
measure of success
> professor..
>
> Nat
>
>
> http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/11/06/3dc8e7abf15b
> e
>
