Some mathematics professors live in a world of their own. Many of us
remember those infamous 200-level math courses from college, filled with all
sorts of existential postulates, axioms and lemmas; endless proofs of
whether or not a Limit exists, and Set Theory. It's not surprising you
could come up with a professor somewhere who would look at it this way.
What I'd like to get past is the perception of metric being a fad of the
70's, along with disco, Whip Inflation Now buttons, and leisure suits.
Re-installing the "inevitability syndrome", i.e. "let's get it over with",
is an important step forward. I think the defensiveness of these and other
editorials shows we're getting close.
Nat
> But by the time of the U.S. metric fad of the 1970s,
>
> 2001-05-01
>
> 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.
>
>
> Robert Prener
> Professor of Mathematics
> Long Island University
> Brookville, N.Y.
>
>
>
> This guy is a Professor? This is really scary!! He must have
> received his
> diploma from this ad I keep receiving as junk e-mail:
>
>
>
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>
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> and the admiration of all.
>
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>
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>
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>
> ================================
> rem - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ================================
>
> 4780799118935
>
>
>
>
> Now, he states:
>
> 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.
>
> How can this be? A ounce is 28.3 g and a an ouncie fluid is 29.5 mL. A
> pint US is 473 mL, a pound US is 454 g. For an ounce liquid to weigh an
> ounce and a pint to weigh a pound, either an ounce fluid has to be 28.4 mL
> or an ounce mass has to be 29.5 g. And as well, a pound must be
> 473 g, or a
> pint must be 454 mL. In other words, their numeric values in grams and
> millilitres must be the same.
>
> And this doesn't take into account the imperial variation. If I was a
> student and had been assigned to his class, I'd either request a
> transfer or
> drop the class and get my money back. If this guy can't get simple
> relations like this correct, he must have real trouble with the
> more complex
> math.
>
>
> John
>
> Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
> frei zu sein.
>
> There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely
> believe they
> are free!
>
> Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
>
>
>
>
>
>
