[USMA:48335] John Seiler

[Pat Naughtin]

Dear All,

John Seiler makes a number of errors at http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/judge-261083-gray-drug.html 
 John Seiler when he writes:

I disagree with the judge on a couple of areas. One is the metric  
system, which he likes, and I hate. For one thing, the government  
tried pushing this on Americans in the 1970s, and the people resisted.  
Automobiles and some other items went metric, most did not. The market  
spoke. He points out how the metric system "came from the Earth  
itself." But the traditional system came from our human experience: an  
inch is the span of a thumb; a foot, a foot; a yard, an arm, and so  
on. A meter can be divided by three prime numbers: 1, 2 and 5. But a  
foot and a yard can be divided by four prime numbers: 1, 2, 3 and 4.


To point out these errors I have interspersed some remarks within John  
Seiler's text.

I disagree with the judge on a couple of areas. One is the metric  
system, which he likes, and I hate.

This suggests that adoption of the metric system is a matter of  
opinion and that metrication of the USA will be a political process.  
Observation of the metrication process in the USA since the early  
1780s when the great leaders, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and  
George Washington, worked together to introduce decimal currency to  
the USA (and subsequently to the rest of the world) suggests that the  
metrication process has been carried forward either by individuals or  
by small groups of leaders who have seen the possibilities of rational  
change and who have led the way. Following their success with decimal  
currency Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington  
then used USA Constitutional provisions to bring a whole plan to the  
Congress for decimalisation of all measurements. Here are relevant  
sections from the Metrication Timeline at: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/MetricationTimeline.pdf

1790 January 8
George Washington (1732/1799), in his first message to Congress,  
reminded the legislators of
their responsibility on weights and measures when he said:

A uniformity of weights and measures is among the important objects  
submitted to
you by the Constitution, and, if it can be derived from a standard at  
once
invariable and universal, it must be no less honorable to the public  
council than
conducive to the public convenience. … Uniformity in the currency,  
weights, and
measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and  
will, I am
persuaded, be duly attended to.

George Washington repeated his call for uniformity in the currency,  
weights, and measures of
the United States of America with similar calls for action in his  
second and third annual
presidential messages to congress (later these annual reports became  
known as the 'State of
the Union Address').

George Washington was clearly referring to an idea similar to Wilkins'  
'universal measure'
when he said, 'derived from a standard at once invariable and  
universal'.

The Congress accepted that decimal currency had been agreed between  
the states in 1785 but
that uniform standard measures remained a problem. The USA Congress  
discussed which
weights and measures to use for the USA and then responded to George  
Washington's speech
by asking Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson (1743/1826), to make a  
special report on the
subject of measurement for the USA. Jefferson presented his report to  
Congress on 1790
July 13. Congress had the authority to decide on a standard of weights  
and measurement as a
Constitutional right, under Article I, Section 8.


1790 July 13
Thomas Jefferson reported back to the Congress with a 'Plan for  
Establishing Uniformity in
the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States'. You can find  
full details of
Jefferson's plan at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffplan.asp 
 and at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/t_jeff.htm

In the first paragraph of his report, Jefferson provides evidence of  
the international effort to
develop a decimal metric system between France, the UK, and the USA.  
Thomas Jefferson
wrote:

... on the 15th of June, came to my hands, from Paris, a printed copy  
of a
proposition made by the Bishop of Autun, to the National Assembly of  
France, on
the subject of weights and measures; and three days afterwards I  
received,
through the channel of the public papers, the speech of Sir John Riggs  
Miller, of
April 13th, in the British House of Commons, on the same subject.

Although Thomas Jefferson's report carried considerable influence in  
the Congress of the
USA as he was the first Secretary of State of the USA for President  
George Washington, no
official action was taken and the Congress passed no legislation  
relating to weights and
measures as a result of Jefferson's report.

For one thing, the government tried pushing this on Americans in the  
1970s, and the people resisted.

The Congress resisted in 1790 but the people did not resist  
metrication in the 1970s – they accepted the metric system  
wholeheartedly and then hid it from themselves.

Automobiles and some other items went metric, most did not.


Numerous examples of hiding the metric system from the public in the  
USA include the complete metrication of all cars, trucks, tractors,  
and motor bikes where the use of initialisms such as mph and psi on  
'public' parts of vehicles hid the complete metrication of the motor  
vehicle industry from the public.

Another example was the metrication of the computer industry. Consider  
this extract from: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AMetricationElephant.pdf

Education

A comparison of 15-year-olds in 30 wealthy nations found that average  
science scores among U.S. students ranked 17th, while average U.S.  
math scores ranked 24th. What role do you think the federal government  
should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology  
driven 21st Century?

Every child, in every school, in every subject, who uses a computer,  
writes every report and every essay on an all-metric computer. They do  
this while believing that they are working with old pre-metric  
equipment measured in inches. This is because the computer industry in  
the USA designs integrated circuit chips using nanometres and  
micrometres, which are then placed into 'mother-boards' in cases built  
to millimetre precision; the computers are then sold to the students  
using words like the 'seventeen inch model'.

And software writers are no help to the children of the USA. For  
example the widely used Microsoft Word (Education Edition) has  
measurements such as its rulers, margins, and column spacing all set  
with defaults in inches, half inches, and quarter inches. If an  
enterprising student changes the defaults to metric (say to the  
worldwide printing industry default of millimetres) they will meet  
such oddities as rulers with groups of ten millimetres divided into  
quarters that are 2 1/2 millimetres long.

Enormous effort, and cost, is spent teaching children in the USA about  
the use of old pre-metric measures, about the metric system, and about  
how to convert between the new and the old[i]. This expense of money  
and children's time does not happen in any other nation except the  
USA. Children in all other advanced countries simply learn the metric  
system, and then use it.

Meanwhile school children in the USA leave school to join a workforce  
predominately using metric measurements[ii]. Manufacturing industry  
must then pay the cost of retraining their USA workforce to work with  
the metric units used in USA industry. Some companies don't do this  
for their new staff; they simply import immigrants who have acquired  
their metric skills from anywhere else in the world.

[i] In an article, 'The Case for U.S. Metric Conversion Now' (1992,  
December 9) Richard P. Phelps stated that:

'It (USA education system) teaches two systems of measurement in the  
schools and, the confusion from learning two systems aside, there is a  
cost to the time spent in teaching two systems. A full year of  
mathematics instruction is lost to the duplication of effort.'

You can view Richard P. Phelps' article after you register on the  
Education Weekly database at: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1992/12/09/14phelps.h12.html

[ii] In her paper presented to the National Math Panel, Teach Only the  
Metric System, Lorelle Young stated that industry in the USA is now  
more than 60 % metric. Lorelle Young's paper can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/1233594/-description-tags-8-metric20system

The market spoke.


And what the market said was: 'How can we make this inevitable  
metrication process as expensive as possible?' See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf 
 to see an estimate of the cost of non-metrication in the USA as a  
little more than a trillion dollars each year.

He points out how the metric system "came from the Earth itself."

This is true, the metric system did arise from the Earth itself. The  
first unit of the French implementation of the English Bishop John  
Wilkins' 'universal measure' was envisaged as a quadrant of the Earth  
divided into 10 000 kilometres for the convenience of navigators.  
Almost universally navigators have avoided this cost saving system in  
favor of old pre-metric methods (with the attendant risks and costs).  
See http://www.metricationmatters.com/who-invented-the-metric-system.html

But the traditional system came from our human experience: an inch is  
the span of a thumb; a foot, a foot; a yard, an arm, and so on.

The USA has been fully metric since the Mendenhall Order of 1893. From  
1893, by definition, all inches are metric inches; all feet are metric  
feet; all yards are metric yards and so on for miles, pounds, pints,  
gallons etc. The all metric nature of inches, feet, pounds, ounces,  
tons etc was reconfirmed in 1959 when all of these were redefined,  
again in pure metric terms.

A meter can be divided by three prime numbers: 1, 2 and 5. But a foot  
and a yard can be divided by four prime numbers: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

True, but why would you want to? Simon Stevin pointed out in 1585 that  
all calculations could be done with decimals. Common or vulgar  
fractions, he pointed out, are completely unnecessary in the modern  
world (post 1585). Because of the ease of use of decimal numbers,  
Simon Stevin's methods were soon adopted in many different crafts,  
trades, and professions, especially for surveying work. The  
Englishman, Gunter, soon developed what we know as Gunter's Chain that  
he divided into 100 links. Gunter's Chain was the one used by George  
Washington and Thomas Jefferson in their surveying work before they  
became politically active. Washington and Jefferson were convinced  
through their own practical experience of decimal numbers that a  
decimal currency was the best way to go; otherwise the arguments about  
dividing by prime numbers might have prevailed and we would still have  
pounds, shillings, and pence to contend with every day.

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see 
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008

Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has  
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the  
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they  
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for  
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many  
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial  
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.  
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,  
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com 
 for more metrication information, contact Pat at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com 
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