Recent post on Google Groups. Just to put all this in perspective....
Nat
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From: JOHN PAZMINO ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Subject: Re: How is a light year e
Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur
View: Complete Thread (12 articles) | Original Format
Date: 2002-06-16 13:49:12 PST
PS> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul Schlyter)
PS> Subject: Re: How is a light year exactly measured?
PS> Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 18:00:56 +0000 (UTC)
PS> Organization: Svensk Amat|rAstronomisk F|rening
PS> >>> 186,000 mph, give or take.
PS> >>
PS> >> The speed of light is generally considered to be:
PS> >>
PS> >> 299,792,458 meters per second.
PS> >
PS> > Boy, those metric-obessed types are persnickey, aren't they?!
PS>
PS> Welcome to the real world! Some day the US too will have to become
PS> less backwards, and start using the system of units which virtually
PS> all of the non-US parts of the world already uses.
Maybe. In the meanwhile, home astronomers in and around New York
are already versed in metrics. Oh, in their 'civilian' life they do
revert to oldstyle, but increasig they converse in metrics. At
lectures and talks given in New York we let the speaker use metrics
and most straight off do that.
That's not only for astronomy audiences. For talks before lay
audiences we are getting increased use of metrics. And, the weirdest
thing of all, we plain no longer get any aderse complaints! It seems
that just about everyone in the street understands metrics anyway!
The one grand reason for this situation in the City is the huge,
like huge, fraction of immigrants from the nonUSA parts of the world.
IIRC from the 2000 census, something like 1/2 of all people living in
New York today (well, in 2000) were born overseas! Despite this
immense foreign population, the City is the US's largest center of
native Americans! Some 100,000 native Americans live in the City,
about 1/3 of the entire NAs in the whole US.
To be fair, the metrics in the street is the household variety,
simple distances and weights. Nothing fancy, like that needed in
science formulae or equations.
The assimilation of metrics into the City makes astronomy culture
vastly easier to bring to the people! In the planeatrium and
astronomers association, for example, we no longer 'teach' metrics. I
still do the silly gig about the meter and the 'yard' but that's about
it. On the other hand, there is a thoroly incredible method for
crosswalking between Fahrenheit and Celsius I do elaborate.
Lo here the two columns of numbers
Fah Cel
--- ---
103 +40
96 +35
86 +30
77 +25
68 +20
59 +15
51 +10
42 +5
33 0
23 -5
14 -10
The right hand column is simply the Celsius temperatures; that's easy.
The left side is Fahrenheits but with subtile discrepancies. I do note
that this table is a quick refresher and not an exact conversion
table. And ONLY if you are intimately familiar with New York does this
table make sense. It DOES NOT work in Sweden, England, Australia,
Germany, Russia, Virgin Islands, and other towns in the United States.
Just New York.
Why?
---
� RoseReader 2.52� P005004
> 2002-07-01
>
> You just don't understand the American way of doing things. Let
> me explain:
>
> First, you find out what way everyone else is doing it.
>
> Second, just to be different, you do it the exact opposite. And
> make a big
> effort to force your way on the world.
>
> When the world rejects American methods, America responds with spite and
> nastiness, insisting the world is full of anti-American ingrates who hate
> America, who hate freedom and democracy, and want to force the
> great America
> to follow their inferior practices.
>
> Americans believe that America became great because of American
> methods and
> the world is jealous of American greatness. Get the point!
>
> It is the matter of the US wanting to be different, so it can
> brag that its
> difference is the right way and everyone else is wrong. This is why the
> metric battle is being lost.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> >
> > There seems to be a tradition in the US marketing world, to use
> > reciprocal units in order to ensure that a higher number means better. I
> > would be curious if you have any reference for where/when this practice
> > originated historically.
>
>
>
>
