In my opinion, the job of getting farmers and real estate folks to adopt
hectares over acres is difficult enough. To ask them to go from acres to
thousands of square metres would be to create a 'mission impossible'!
The hectare, like the litre, puts a 'human face' on SI. In both cases, it
is SO easy to convert to pure SI when needed for further calculations.
For the time being, let's get the C.I.A. [and others] to correct their
"World Fact Book". That's where one can find some real 'leverage'.
Duncan
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Mechtly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: February 21, 2001 15:42
Subject: [USMA:11198] m2 not hectare
>On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Joseph B. Reid wrote:
>
>> >Gene Mechtly wrote in USMA 11065:
>> >>I advocate meter squared (m2 as the simplified symbol) for the US, not
>> >>hectare.
>
>> Joe continued
>> >Here it is not a question of symbols, but of numerical values; 1 ha = 10
>> >000 m2. Increasing the number of digits in the area of a farm by 4
>> >non-significant digits is not good practice, as well as being
inconvenient.
> My focus was on meter squared in preference to hectare, not on
>their respective symbols.
>
>Joe continues:
>> Further to the above, do you think you can persuade a farmer who has a
>> quarter section to say that he has a farm of 647 000 m2?
> I would not even try your suggestion.
> I would hope to teach the farmer and his children to say
>"Our farm is about six hundred fifty thousand square meters"
>and to understand the meaning of 647 E3 as they might already punch the
>more precise number into their calculator or into their PC.
>Gene.
>
