2002-12-30 You say the Montgomery County School System in Maryland is committed to the SI. Can you explain how they teach SI? Do you know for sure how they teach it? For example, do they teach SI as a primary system with actual hands on experience using SI measuring devices? Or, do they teach SI as a subset to FFU? In other words, is their method to teach FFU and when SI is introduced, all that is taught is how to convert SI to FFU?
Whatever the method, teaching SI to the students is like teaching Esperanto to American students. Five minutes after you learn it, you forget it as you have no practical means to use it. This is why it is important to at least metricate those parts of the economy that would reinforce the teaching, such as grocery store scales, media weather forecasts, gasoline sales, and road signs. Without some form of metrication taking place in the real world, the educational aspect of it is a waste of time and money. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "G. Stanley Doore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2002-12-30 09:21 Subject: [USMA:24275] Re: If War Comes > Not much has changed. > > US Marine infantry types still use yards whereas Marine artillery and other > weapon systems are metric. It's still a mixture. > > We must have the SI taught in schools rather than any old metric system so > kids know and understand the relationship of units in the single common > language of measurement worldwide. It's necessary if they want to get good > science and technology jobs. The Montgomery County School System here in > Maryland is committed to the SI. > > Stan Doore > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Howard Ressel" Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 8:47 AM > Subject: [USMA:24274] If War Comes > > > No, its not the Iraq version, this has to do with a book I found at a used > book fair written in 1938 by R. Ernest Dupuy and George Fielding Eliot. It > discusses the military situation in 1937, very spooky reading about how they > thought the US should stay out of the war and that we would never be able to > recover the Philippines if we lost them. > > What is interesting (at least for this list) is that the book mixes metric > and English units throughout. One table of rifles for different countries is > a real hodgepodge. The country and type of rifle is listed along with it > effective and maximum range. Effective ranges are listed in yards for all > countries while maximum ranges are listed in meters for France, German, > Italy, Japan, Czechoslovakia and Spain, listed in Yards for Great Britain > and the US and listed in paces for Russia. Most distance in the book are in > yards and miles but almost all munition caliber are listed in mm. The main > exception is battle ship guns all listed in inches. > > > Howard Ressel > Project Design Engineer, Region 4 > (585) 272-3372 > >
