On Thu, 10 May 2001 14:06:37 -0500, Sam Ewalt wrote:
> On Wed, 9 May 2001 22:50:09 -0400, Roger Turk wrote:
>> When Australia converted to SI, they "standardized" a piece of plywood as
> What does SI stand for?
> I know what it refers to, but what do the initials stand for?
> Despite being taught in the schools for for over forty years and
> despite usage in the scientific community and in the American
> military, not to mention the rest of the world, there is no widespread
> movement in the United States to adopt the metric system. It
> doesn't even come up anymore as a serious alternative.
> It seems to be a dead issue here as far as I can tell.
I remember back in the late 1960's, or maybe it was in the early 1970's,
there was an impetus and an official encouragement by the US government
for everyone to convert to the metric system. Many gasoline stations
started selling their gas by the liter sometime in the early 1970's. Due
to the unpopularity of the system among consumers, this practice was
discontinued after about six months.
In the early 1960's the US military started equipping the sights and aiming
devices on its weapons systems in meters instead of yards. Also ranges and
ballistics tables were converted to the metric standards. The US military
is still using the metric standard for its weapons systems. This makes
sense because most of the US allies in NATO and other treaty organizations
use the metric system. Another reason why the metric system makes more
sense for weapons systems is that linear metric measurements are related
to geographic coordinates and also to the military UTM grid systems on maps.
In using the engineering formulas for calculating demolitions charges, the
US military still uses inches and feet. I don't know why they have not
yet converted these formulas to metric. Perhaps it is because the metric
system might tend to upset the often used and well known "rules of thumb",
which are certainly good enough for that kind of government work.
Sam Heywood
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