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You will note that 8 oz and 16 oz etc in the
English system are round numbers in the binary system. Recall that the
binary system was invented so one the Kings could indicate the number of the
current wife and four fingers and a thumb were not enough on one hand to
indicate the current wife. He needed to do the to save embarrassment of
visitors since travel times were long and frequency of visits from distant lands
were few.
Cheers, Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 12:20
PM
Subject: [USMA:12570] WSJ letters
Today's Letters page from the Wall Street Journal (.html
version
attached)
Nat
-----------------------------------
Pounded
by the Metric System
Britain's heavy-handed mandating of metric
measurements for produce-selling
may merit your lampooning, April 16
editorial "A Pound of Flesh." Thomas
Jefferson may merit it too. As you
noted, he promoted the very
kilograms-and-meters "mathematical rationality"
that you subordinate to
pounds-and-feet "tradition and
instinct."
But Jefferson was only partially "smitten with all things
French" concerning
a metric system for commerce and science. He once
scolded the mathematician,
philosopher and humanist Le Marquis de Condorcet
about what you rightly call
"inaccurately" basing a length standard on
equator-to-pole distance. In
fact, Jefferson promoted fundamentally
defining length in terms of time --
as is now done, despite your erroneous
report that it's still based on a
longitude segment. The distance light
travels in a tiny time defines the
modern meter.
A Jeffersonian
metric system would have precluded the meters-vs.-feet mix-up
that lost us
that NASA Mars probe. As this discussion continues, let's not
also lose
sight of plain facts.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson,
Va.
***
Although units are fundamentally arbitrary, the English
System is based on
one of the most basic measurement notions, that of
halving and doubling.
There are 16 ounces to a pound, which means that if
you cut your
quarter-pounder in half and then in half again, you have an
ounce.
Similarly, half of a quart is a pint, half of that a cup and if you
halve
that three more times, you have a fluid ounce. Half of that is
a
tablespoonful. Double a quart twice and you get a gallon.
Although
base-10 is the way we calculate, computers use base 2, so in some
ways the
English System is far in advance of the metric. We use K's and Megs
these
days, which are not quite M's and Millions. Metric proponents proudly
point
to the fact that a liter of water weighs exactly a kilogram. Fair
enough,
but "a pint's a pound the whole world round," or at least once was.
A fluid
ounce of water weighs an ounce. The equivalence is present in
both
systems.
The base-10 compatibility of the metric system was
once thought to be a boon
to calculation and commerce. But by the time of
the U.S. metric fad of the
1970s, the calculator and, more to the point,
calculating scales and
prepackaged meats, had rendered the arithmetical
edge irrelevant.
Standardization of machine parts may make economic
sense. Having to own two
sets of sockets, wrenches and taps is an expense.
But then the world might
be a cheaper and more efficient place if we
legislated only black clothing.
Nevertheless, this reasoning does not
apply to pricing of bananas. But take
heart, at least they let Mr. Thoburn
sell his fruit for pence. How long will
it be before the London gold fixing
is quoted in Euros per gram?
Robert Prener
Professor of
Mathematics
Long Island University
Brookville, N.Y.
***
It's
fun, but too easy, to deride the metric system and the measures used
by
5.719 billion people -- 95.4% of the world's population -- every day,
for
everything they do. The rest of us buy cola in liters, video tape and
film
in millimeters, aspirin in milligrams, and light bulbs in watts
(electrical
measures, and everything in science, have always been
metric-based). Our
largest trading partners and closest neighbors, Canada
and Mexico, are
metric countries. Major U.S. industries, such as auto,
machine tool,
electronics, soft drink, liquor, pharmaceutical and health
care, are
primarily or completely metricated. The metric system is
decimal-based, easy
to use and coherent; the inch-pound system is not. It
is said that on the
day India converted, illiterate street vendors adapted
in a few hours. Even
Journal readers seem to have taken to decimal-based
stock trading without
serious trauma. Let's let the English stew over their
archaic measures while
we get on with it.
William Brenner
Chevy
Chase, Md.
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