Actually, that is a bit unfair on Richard Hammond. He recently did a series of programs on BBC2 on wonders of our age (buildings, trains, aircraft, etc), and it was all virtually 100% SI. This was of course outside the Top Gear arena, so if he says anything on TG not metric, I would imagine that is due to pressure from either the show's producers or the other presenters.
All is not totally hopeless. James May has been known to talk in metric terms, and in today's Sunday Times Clarkson talked about the Bugatti Veyron - he talked about all its speed issues in 'kph' (ugh!), with mph in parentheses. Better than nothing, I suppose. John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat Naughtin To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 9:09 AM Subject: [USMA:46390] Top Gear Dear All, I have just submitted the following to the BBC car evaluation program, 'Top Gear': Dear Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, I have watched your 'Top Gear' program on several occasions and I have enjoyed your style of presentation and your program's content. My problem with watching your program is that you stress old pre-metric measuring words as though these had some relevance in the motor industry. I live in Geelong – a Ford manufacturing town – where we were aware of the 'world car concept' based on the metric system from the early 1970s. We knew then, that in the motor industry, the metrication process was both inevitable and irreversible and this has subsequently proved to be the truth. I have no doubt that you have also seen the inevitability and the irreversibility of metric measuring in the motor vehicle industry in all car, truck, and bike manufacturing industries, yet your team seems to disregard metric measuring units like watts and kilowatts as if they don't exist. In the Australian motor manufacturing industry most engineers simply accepted the simplicity and ease-of-use provided by metric units and then got on with improving the excellence of their engineering skills. Some whinged and whined and I suspect that these might be the people who are influencing your choices such as whether you use horsepowers or kilowatts. As I watch your program I simply don't know whether you have a quite deliberate policy to lead the British people toward the ancient past of the Roman invasion of England (with their inches and ounces), and the French invasion of 1066 (with their avoirdupois pounds, quarters, hundredweights, and tons), or whether you are acting innocently simply kowtowing to whingers and whiners in the BBC audience who operate on the principle that 'it's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil'. I suspect (and hope) that it is the latter However, I have to say that I find it extremely sad to watch you promote untruths and obfuscation to the people of the UK – whether deliberate or not. Some of the whingers and whiners you support possibly believe that they are avoiding the foreign metric system as a point of national UK pride. This is a totally erroneous view as the metric system was invented in England and first published in London in 1668 by Bishop John Wilkins (see http://www.metricationmatters.com/who-invented-the-metric-system.html ). The French did not develop the decimal metric system from Bishop John Wilkins plan until more than 120 years later in the 1790s. You also know that many of the words appropriate to cars and their engines are quintessentially English words – the James Watt inspired watts and kilowatts are obvious examples. Another concern that I have is that I think by your choice of old pre-metric foreign words, such as inch, ounce, and pound, you are actively sabotaging the education of children in the UK. I know that sabotage is a strong word so let me explain. Children in the UK, especially children who might be interested in cars, motors, and mechanical engineering have to learn the metric system to understand cars and motors; then they have to find out about all of the old pre-metric words to understand your comments on 'Top Gear'. In my considered opinion, this is a pure and simple sabotage of these children's education as they feel they have to learn multiple measuring words simply to understand you and your comments. I know of only one study of this from the USA, where Richard Phelps estimates that it takes USA children an extra year to learn the mathematics of inches and ounces when compared to (say) Singapore children who only need to learn the metric system; the USA has to spend an extra 10 % of its mathematics education budget just to be something like 37th out of 38 OECD nations in comparative mathematics tests. You are encouraging this same differentiation in the UK by your choice of measuring words – and I don't believe that this is at all fair to British children. 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 As a side issue, you are also perpetrating and continuing the totally unnecessary, and seemingly endless, discussion about the metrication of the UK as a whole. This is extremely expensive for the whole of the UK as a nation, as it is for all nations who resist the simplicity, honesty, openness, and worldwide application of the metric system. I have not specifically investigated this cost in the UK but you may be able to draw some parallels from this estimate I made for the USA after visiting there a year or two ago: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf Yours faithfully, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html 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 or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
