On 1/23/2013 6:44 AM, Fabrizio Giudici wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:37:53 +0100, Jess Holle <[email protected]> wrote:
While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't
actually see that as a big part of the equation here.
I don't comment on the "own way", since the important thing is whether
a given way makes sense or not. So far USA went their own way for some
things that made sense. Units don't in my opinion.
I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach
the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're
unfamiliar with. They live their lives thinking solely in terms of
pounds, gallons, ounces, miles, feet, and inches. Kilograms, liters,
kilometers, and meters are positively Martian to most people in the US.
I'm not sure how well those who don't take a good sampling of science
courses really get introduced to SI units, much less their compelling
nature. Even among those who are, many don't see them in use enough to
/think /in terms of them. [It helps when you're into things like
cross-country skiing where measurements are primarily in SI units --
even in the US.]
Correct, but didn't the UK face with the same problem and survived?
They also faced with a reform in their currency, as well as many
Europeans faced with a complete change in the currency (whether a good
idea or not is another matter).
Besides lack of familiarity there's also a vicious anti-government
undercurrent. There'd be a huge public outcry against the US federal
government if the government took away the units Americans are familiar
with and forced European ones down their throats -- and that's exactly
how many Americans would see it and portray it.
Of course, I still think the US government should switch over to SI
units as quickly as possible -- but no politician wants to pay the
political price. Also, those in the federal government are old
(relatively speaking) and tend to have non-scientific/technical
backgrounds -- and thus are perhaps even less comfortable with SI units
than their constituents.
--
Jess Holle
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