In the MT answer I posted earlier we find this statement made by the editors:
"However, USMA's mission is to make [correctly used] SI the only measurement language used by the United States, not to promote international standards." I don't know how other USMA members on this list feel about it but I for one I find that it does not reflect USMA's real mission nor does it's originator seem to understand what a metric transition truly implies. There is no way that we can talk about metrication in US without involving us in standardization. Like I said in my letter to MT, if USMA's ultimate goal is to have the metric system (solely) used throughout the country than this can ONLY be achieved by implementing *hard* metric standards. In this case ISO 216 is a hard metric standard for printing media that is used by the rest of the world except USA and Canada to my knowledge. (see Markus Kuhn's: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html) If we just convert the dims of the US paper size to mm we will only achieve a soft metrication and the paper will allways be referred as 11x17 or whatever. On the other hand what possible reason could we have to create another hard metric standard for printing media different from ISO 216? The answer to US metrication ***is*** in the adoption of international standards when US has no better suggestion to make, and if US thinks that it can do better than it's friends from Switzerland, then the US should bring it's proposal to them, prove that it is better than the current standard in effect (if any), and suggest the adoption of the US proposal as an international standard. This is also the only attitude the US should adopt if it really wants to work towards globalization. The "we have our own standards and if you don't like it, too bad" attitude will only lead back to isolationism. If we fool ourselves that a US metrication is possible only by including metric units on labels or having speeds in km/h we are in for a huge deception. Come to think about it, this may be the very reason why although USMA was founded in 1916, 85 years later it has still not achieved it's goal. Only an initial conversion of all US standards to metric will ever permit a general transition in the country. How can we expect that a common citizen who learned ifp in school and uses ifp at work, calibrates its scales in ifp reads OSHA standards in ifp, National Electrical Code in ifp, ASME standards in ifp, will ever, ever, agree to buy his gas in liters or it's meat in kilograms? I am not an easy guy and that's why I joined this association and movement. If the very core of our assc. denies the crucial importance of adopting HARD metric standards in achieving metrication in US I seriously wonder if they are true proponents or disguised enemies of the movement. Finally, I want to point out that this is not how I understand the meaning of USMA's stated goal and that I entirely disagree with the quoted statement from MT. Adrian PS: I have been off the list for the past two months. If any items on this topic have been already discussed I appologize but I could not read them.
