To all, Today (Monday) I got my PhD grade. The ceremony began at 15:30 MET and lasted an hour. I had to defend my thesis before a 'tribunal' of people from different universities. Members of my family, friends and colleagues from my work place, the Nijmegen Public Records, in Dutch it is called Het Archief were there too. This was a day in a person's life that is a climax.
After the ceremony we had a dinner in a restaurant close by. One of my coaches gave me a book that I had wanted to buy from Alapage on the Internet, a Dutch translation of Denis Guedj, La Mesure du Monde. La Meridienne, Paris 1987. I gave that coach, who was there when I reached the first two levels, another coach who helped me to get to this PhD level, and the professor, who is the official promoter, each a copy of Louis's book, La Grande Metrication and a bottle of French wine. No less than four newspapers in my country have shown interest in my thesis. A large article appeared in a national daily last Saturday, three other newspapers will follow soon. This gave me a chance to strike a blow for the cause of SI-metric against old metric and creepy crawly ifp. It is hoped that other historians will take up the work and start research in their own countries or areas. Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
