After a five years absence, I have just joined this list again, curious
what progress metrication has made since then.
Do you think that we can expect from the current Bush administration or
the current congress any progress with regard to US metrication?
How do you see US metrication develop over the next few years? What are
the next significant breakthroughs/milestones to be expected and when do
you think will they happen?
I'm observing US metrication with great interest, but to be honest, I
haven't noticed much to observe over the past few years. I wonder what
caused it to stall.
The sort of breakthroughs that I am waiting for are things like:
- Measures to help every American to know their own size and weight
in cm and kg (for example by using these units on drivers licences
and similar every-day documents), as psychologically important
everyday references.
- The elimination of every support for old-style units from US
legislation, including:
- The introduction of a law that says that only metric quantities
are legally defined in contracts and that no court can be asked
to interpret what exactly a "foot" or "pound" is, if the contract
in question was closed after say 2004. This implies of course
the removal of any non-metric legal labeling requirements.
- The exact meaning of the old units could be undefined by
making it officially/legally equally valid to use alternative
definitions for the colloquial terms, in particular:
1 pound = 1/2 kg
1 pint = 0.5 L
1 inch = 1/40 m
and from that follows
1 hundredweight = 100 pounds = 50 kg
1 ton = 2000 pounds = 1000 kg
1 quart = 2 pints = 1 L
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 4 L
1 foot = 12 inches = = 300 mm
1 fluid ounce = 1/128 gallons = 1/32 L
etc.
- NIST etc. stopping to calibrate equipment that has non-SI scales.
- A nationwide changeover to replace road signs.
- FAA air traffic rules changed such that controllers quote
altitude in meters.
- As a temporary measure a law that controls the marketing of measuring
with non-metric units.
- US sports associations updating their game rules to use
metric measures.
- Introduction of A4 as the official government office paper format
and continuously increasing production of new forms and letterheads
in A4.
Markus
--
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
