John, Carl, Re the discussions below, one can't imagine that 99.9% of all Americans are uneducated. Some other factor must be causing Americans to retain their "John Wayne" mentality. I've written to the US Secretary of Education, US media, etc, but it's brick walls everywhere.
What can make Americans understand that there really IS a metric world outside the good old USA? Even a discussion on 'Oprah' recently failed to make a dent in the importance or advantages in the US using SI units. Amazing. Mike Carl said: | > Mike: | > Hmm, something tells me that showing a person emails from this list | wouldn't | > be the most effective way of winning them over. The problem, as I see it, | > is largely one of context. To someone who has been following our | > discussion, it would make sense to see a reference to "the stupid | > horsepower" etc. To someone completely on the outside, though, it | wouldn't | > make any sense at all. Most people don't think of a horsepower as being | 746 | > W. They just know that it is a measure of how "powerful" an engine | is--they | > probably think of something along the lines of "force", not energy per | unit | > time. | John S. said: | | Yes, this is true of any measurements most people encounter. For the most | part, the terms tickle their ear. They think they know what the term means | only because they are familiar with the name. I'm sure in the case of the | horsepower, it would not be an improvement in understanding just to start | measuring power in watts. Unless of course, the person knows something | about mechanics. Among more educated people, there might be an improvement | in understanding if the horsepower is replaced by the watt. Someone who | would experience other units of power replaced by the watt may now be able | to see relationsships that were not previously visible. Thos in the | electrical fields would have no problem understanding the power of the watt, | even when used in non-electrical applications. | | > | > To really get our point across to someone unacquainted with metrication, | it | > takes a carefully built explanation of what we are doing and why (and an | > audience willing to listen or read for a few minutes). That is why I | wrote | > the documents I shared in USMA:22927. Simply launching an attack on | > something that a person is familiar with but hasn't really thought about, | > like horsepower, will only confuse them and make them defensive. I have | > found that for written explanations of metrication, it takes a careful | > introduction and detailed explanations. For spoken conversation, it takes | > even more. It takes finding out what their concern is if they say that | > metric is hard. Believe it or not, the best response is not "No it isn't | > hard!" | | It is hard in their mind because they are not familiar with the metric unit | terms, nor the value of the prefixes, nor the interrelationships with the | units. The thing is, before they can feel comfortable with SI, they have to | learn it. How do they learn it? Is everyone over 21 years going to return | to school? Is the governemnt going to educate the people via the TV, | internet, printed news, etc.? No, I don't think so. As long as people are | ignorant of SI, they will resist it. | | Even if they are ignorant of FFU, it still makes no difference. They think | they know FFU and will choose to stick with it even if it costs them. The | trick to getting people to accept the change is to educate them in SI, and | metricate products so that the people can see what they are learning. And | that means sticking to rational sizes in SI. And if both of these happen | together, the people will really believe SI is simpler. | | People also have to be instructed that clinging to FFU really costs them big | time. They pay more to have non-standard devices. Products made here do | sell elsewhere. And most of all it is they who will always have to deal | with 2 conflicting measurement systems. Which of course is a cost burden | they have to pay for. | | John
