Dear John, Thank you for this letter of support for simplicity. I agree with your thoughts that having the complexity of many units might simply be a hankering back to ifp times when we had many units and, of course, many conversion factors to go with them.
I have spent many years wondering why conversions using centimetres take so much longer than conversions using millimetres. The difference is so dramatic that it is worth thinking about. On a building site, one of the issues is the information block on the corner of the blueprint. In Australia, this always bears the line, "All dimensions in mm" and this single line does the following things for all the tradesmen on the site: 1 There are no fractions 2 There are no conversions 3 All measurements are precise (perhaps too precise in some cases) 4 There are no decimal measurements and no decimal conversions Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-12-25 14.18, kilopascal at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2002-12-24 > > It is utterly amazing how blind we are. Here we have an example from Pat as > to what was shown to work and what doesn't work. Yet, we persist on making > it more difficult. It isn't because we don't push centimetres or decimetres > that metrication isn't taking place. It is because the US feels it is right > in sticking with FFU. > > Oh, of course, we have the complainers that the metre is too big and the > millimetre is too small and the inch and foot are perfect. That is just an > excuse. No matter what SI unit we try to standardise on, it will never make > the FFU-ists happy. I'm sure Australia and others went through the same > bellyaching. The REALITY is someone has to take charge, put their foot > down, say this is the way it is going to be, you don't like it your out of > business, case closed. > > We have such a wealth of information before us. We have the experiences of > the entire British commonwealth countries as to what works and what doesn't. > We have the advantage of the electronic age that the others didn't have. In > those days scales and gasoline/petrol pumps were mechanical and needed > costly changes. Today, everything is electronic. The cost to change is > either nothing a minimal. My god folks, what more can we ask for? > > If we are not taking the advantages of the opportunities we have now, will > we ever? Are we going to continue to look for reasons and lame excuses for > not going SI? Or are we going to grab the bull by the horns and metricate > in the only way that works? > > Let's just hope a United EU will have the power to force the issue 7 years > from now. Hopefully we won't have to wait 50 years for all those drips and > drops to fill a bucket. I don't know about most of you, but 50 years from > now, if I'm still here, I won't be worrying about SI then. > > John > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, 2002-12-24 18:14 > Subject: [USMA:24215] Re: Megagram, shmegagram!!! > > > on 2002-12-22 00.42, James Wentworth at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > <snip> >> [4] The decimeter should be included in any program to popularize the >> metric system in America. The most common complaint I've heard and read >> from tradesmen is that "the meter is too big and the centimeter is too >> small." Like Baby Bear's porridge, the decimeter would be "just right." > It >> is close enough to the inch in size that carpenters and plumbers (more of >> those "Joe Sixpacks") would more readily accept metric rulers if they had >> three unit sizes to choose from (dm, cm, and mm). Even the USMA's >> Swiss-made metric tapes are demarcated in decimeters by printing each >> decimeter in a different background color, so the decimeter must be used > at >> least somewhat in Europe. > <snip> > > My direct experiences are in direct contradiction to the suggestions that > you make in this paragraph. > > In Australia, the industries that chose to use millimetres made a smooth and > rapid conversion to metric measures, and the industries that chose to use > centimetres are still struggling with the conversion more than thirty years > later. > > No Australian industry chose decimetres for their metric conversion. > Worldwide experience has shown that decimetres have never been used > successfully during the change to metric. Their use around the world is > still quite limited. > > I have no idea why it is simpler and easier to convert to metric using > millimetres and so much more difficult using centimetres. I only know that > my experience in working with the agricultural, architectural, building, > carpentry, clothing, footwear, furniture, leather, plumbing, textiles, > timber, and welding industries tells me that this is so. > > Personally, I have no gripe with the units centimetre and decimetre. I can > slither decimal markers backwards and forwards quite readily (and I � > sometimes � assume that others can do the same) > > The fact is that the choice of units has little to do with Baby Bear's > porridge and to assume it does is simply conjecture. If you are looking for > a model of metric conversion that works, then look for it in those places > where metric conversion has been done successfully. Conjecture serves no > useful purpose here. > > If you want a smooth and rapid conversion to metric measures, I strongly > recommend that you choose millimetres for your small unit. > > Cheers, > > Pat Naughtin LCAMS > Geelong, Australia > >
