Calling 30 cm to be 'Metric Foot' is derogatory to the progress of SI & Metrication. Yes, using a Quarter Metre scale = 25 cm, as I suggested in my several mails to USMA can be meaningful to students in understanding SI length units.
Brij Bhushan Vij <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20040228T13:32(decimal) PM(IST)
Aa Nau Bhadra Kritvo Yantu Vishwatah -Rg Veda.
*****The New Calendar Rhyme*****
Thirty days in July, September:
April, June, November, December;
All the rest have thirty-one; accepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-nine, to be (in) fine;
Till leap year gives the whole week READY:
Is it not time to MODIFY or change to make it perennial, Oh Daddy!
And make the calendar work with Leap Week Rule! ***** ***** ***** *****
From: "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [USMA:28963] RE: Metric foot Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 23:34:35 -0800
It might (or might not) happen that people will use the term "foot" to refer
to a length of 30 cm. However, it's not coherent with SI and will never
receive official sanction from CGPM (Conf�rence G�neral des Poids et
Mesures). I wouldn't recommend it as a practice.
You mention "the average person." Such a person, in another era, might have been referred to as "everyman," which isn't very politically correct, these days, but it avoids the need to define what we mean by average. Everyman (and "everywoman") is about 19 times as likely to live outside the U.S. as in the U.S. Other than in the U.S., everyman (and everywoman) already understands metric measures and is comfortable with them. Getting back to averages, their average intelligence is probably about the same as the average intelligence in the U.S. With the advent of metric-only labeling, I think Americans can become comfortable with metric without the creation of pseudo-legacy units.
Just my opinion, of course.
Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf
Of john mercer
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 22:02
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:28962] Metric foot
Hello I am going to put an opinion forward witch will probably upset some
people but here goes. I have given a lot of thought to this. The word foot
is a part of American and Canadian measurement language. What does anybody
think of changing the foot from 12 inches to 30 Cms, but still calling it a
foot. Most people when they talk of lenth talk in feet IE if a person has
a boat they will say it's 40 feet. They never say 3 yds and 1 foot. If this
were to happen my suggestion is to make all rulers 30 cm with no inches. The
argument against this could be that using a 30 cm foot if a person wanted to
convert it to cm's as the number of feet got higher the cm numbers would be
very high. This is true but how many people convert the number of feet to
inches. The metric foot would be divided in to ten 3 cm parts. For example
peoples heights instead of saying 5 ft 1 in they could say 5.1 feet. This
works out to very close to 5 feet 1 inch. Most people know their height
approx. I know this sounds very radical and you might think i am trying to
go backwards but like i have said before i would like to have the metric
system accepted by the average person. I know this is not perfect but
sometimes comprimise is not so bad. With a 30 cm foot if you asked a person
what is a tenth of it they could easily tell you. If you asked a person
what is a tenth of a 12 inch foot you might have a little more trouble
getting an answer. Thank you very much, i hope i didn't upset anybody to
much, but sometimes i feel we who love the metric system can forget about
the average person. I'm saying this to myself more then anybody else.
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