John Kilopascal wrote in USMA 24247:
I find it odd that all of a sudden we are being inundated with books that have a measurement theme. It strikes me odd that both books written and reviewed this year have an underlying anti-metric theme. This books seems to come at us from a different angle. Instead of concentrating on non-existent errors in the early calculation of the metre, this book tends to glorify the measurement of the American continent in links, chains, yards, acres and miles.
One should be asking why are these books appearing? This one seems to be saying: "America, you can't go metric. FFU is ingrained in our soil. You can't measure your personal land in metres, it was already done so by the blood and sweat of American pioneers in chains and miles. You would be destroying so much if you abandon our earth bound and honoured units for those foreign, artificial and abstract units of the metric system. And look folks, even in metric countries, the people resist and still use our natural units"
The 2-nd last paragraph of the review attacks Europe because it is the inventor of metric and Canada because they defied the FFU-ists and went metric, only to stop half-way creating confusion. And if the US ever thinks of going metric, this is where we will be.
I feel these books are designed to give comfort to the US for not metricating and sticking with FFU. It is like they are saying: "No matter how much the world is against you, you are right in sticking with FFU, and you will win in the end. But, you must continue to be on guard and fight, because the Hitlers and Stalins and Husseins of the metric world want to destroy you by forcing you to adopt their phoney measurements."
When will someone write a book praising SI? That is what we need.
John
Certainly Ken Alder's book, "The Measure of All
Yhings", seems to support John. Its subtitle is "The
Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World".
Alder does not mention that Mechain's "error" did not in any
way affect the definition of the metre. See my USMA 23873.
--
Joseph B. Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8
Telephone 416-486-6071
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8
