I see the point is getting homed into the minds of concerned 'metricologists'. The fact that we have to use the prefixes and/or suffixes to express samller or larger quantities of the SI-unit in drawing or day-to-day activity make its use 'obligatory! No offence, there!But, if the system needs correction among *involved countries*, it is time America's Educational system does some home work and adopted the SI-spellings of *Metre and Litre* and not the one's the subject aims at. This is where, most countries fail in many aspects of conversion to metrics! Brij Bhushan Vij <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "Ma Be" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [USMA:21382] Re: Millilitres vs centilitres >Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 08:13:33 -0700 > >Thanks, Joe, for sharing this very opportune survey. I just have some few >additional remarks to make on this subject. > >For starters, I find it important for all of us to remember that we should >not consider the treatment of prefixed units as being "another unit". Some >of us either unwillingly or for some other reason, tradition, "culture"... >(and I'm not saying this is the particular case of anyone who ever >participated in this discussion!) appear to think that any and all prefixed >units constitute *different* units in themselves. > >A typical example of this behavior was that Professor here in my own back >yard who insisted in talking about "conversion factors" (a huge SIC!) >between several SI prefixed units. As long as some may have this approach >concerning centi or milli we may have a loooong way to go before we could >settle this. > >While in the minds of some there may be "difficulties" related to >"navigating" around differing prefixes the fact of the matter is their >introduction and diversity can be adequately addressed if stakeholders >involved with this adopted the simple effective procedure of treating them >as "the third entity" in calculations (the power of 10 component), as it >*always should*, actually! > >I know that this may be hard to ask since it would involve getting people >"unused" to doing calcs a certain way, but, ultimately, I honestly see no >other effective way of handling this issue. It's either this or continue >to upset people by polarizing in favor of one approach over the other (and >in the end, I honestly think NOBODY wins really!). Evidently, it goes >without saying that where there is no need to do this (when, for instance, >all units involved are of the same expected nature) one can dispense with >this 3rd entity business in practice. > >Having said the above I'd like to hereby propose that we alert authorities >to this simple but effective approach to address this thing for once and >for all. Hopefully when it comes to teaching our next generations this >would be part of all countries educational systems. I realize that this >may be somewhat harder to do than to lobby people to stick with one >specific prefix. But I'd like to believe that this idea would be welcome >because it would "introduce" a procedure for the treatment of equations, >calcs, etc that not only does work but also mitigates current potential >operational difficulties involved with camps using diverse prefixes. > >If adopted people will finally no longer lose their sleep over whether >camps talking are using c or m or whatever else. Diversity would be >respected while with time people would have a better chance in a calmer >environment to slowly *but safely* migrate to more preferred prefixes or >something where "standardization" would bring clear economies of scale to >all involved. > >It's important though for all of us to understand and accept that we will >*NEVER* achieve complete universality in the use of specific prefixes. >This IMHO is next to impossible due to the very diverse nature of different >applications. A striking example is nanotechnology versus so-called heavy >industries. One using (and I'm afraid always will!) nano, femto, while the >other kilo, mega or even higher. > >So, in summary, the proposal is for the creation of a permanent 3rd entity >(power of 10) *as an integral part* of the measured value to be >incorporated for all math-related operations (software, manual calcs, etc). > This can be regarded as a precautionary measure as this "new field" may >not be used if all entities involved in the calcs were of "cancelling" >nature (i.e. results would come in expected format). In other words >depending on the industry this "field" could be entirely ignored, so that >the apparent "extra" work/cost of introducing this would effectively not be >a player. > >There, I hope all of you will view this humble suggestion as a definitive >way of dealing with this issue. Thanks for your time. > >Marcus > >On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 22:15:07 > Joseph B. Reid wrote: > >Marcus, in USMA 21377, wrote a strong rebuttal of USMA 21374 in which I > >presented the South African case for the use of the millimetre in > >engineering and architectural drawings. Albert J. Mettler carried out an > >internatioinal survey of metric practice in 1976. Albert, with a Swiss > >background, farvored the centimetre but reported: > > > > Countries not using the centimetre > > engineers architects > >Europe > > Austria 1) X > > Czechoslovakia X > > Denmark 1) X X > > Germany X > > Greece X > > Hungary X > > Italy X > > Luxemburg X X > > Norway 1) X X > > Poland X > > Sweden 1) X > > Switzerland X > > Yugoslavia X > >Africa > > Botswana 2) X X > > Cameroon x X > > Mauritius 2) X X > > South Africa 2) X X > > Sudan X X > > Zimbabwe 2) X X > >Asia > > Cyprus X > > India X > > Iraq X > > Philippines X > >Central America > > Cuba X X > > El Salvador X > > > >1) standards institutes with rather puristic approach > >2) recent converts to metric system with limited use of cm. > > > > > > > >Joseph B.Reid > >17 Glebe Road West > >Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071 > > > > > > >Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably >Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. >Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
