METRIC LAND
or: "What I think of the metric system" by Joan Pontius
In Belgium, you can buy jam in returnable jars, and once I
finished my
jar, and was cleaning it, and in the glass at the bottom was "3/8
L".
And this sort of threw me, because I was a big metric fan, and
the
great advantage of the metric system was that it got rid of all
those
silly fractions. So why were they using them here in
metric-land?
Then I figured the jar was only so big, so it took up less space
to
print 3/8 L rather than 0.375 L.
But there was another possibility.
That being that although the
metric system looks good on paper,
people/society finds fractions
useful. So ok, we have the metric system for
important stuff, but
for certain situations, fractions will be
used.
So then, I'm slowly picking up some Dutch, and we go out for
beers,
and Filip is always asking for "A Pincha", and I find out
that
actually he's saying "a pintje", meaning "a small pint". So here
we
are in metric land, and people are ordering their beers with
English
terms!
So this is really throwing me, and I say, yeah but
Filip, it's not a
pint, it's 250 milliliters! Why do you call it a pint?
You've got
the metric system, why don't you use it? Why don't you order
in
metric? You don't need those silly english measurements, you have
New
and Improved Metric units. When you go into a cafe, instead
of
shouting "Een Pintje Alstublieft" you should
say,
two-hundred-and-fifty-milliliters alstublieft." And he just gave me
a
strange look, and mumbled something about it being too hard to say.
And
ok, maybe giving the precise amount of milliliters is a bit
extreme, but he
could at least say, "A quarter liter alstublieft."
But then maybe even that
would be too difficult after lots of beer, so
maybe just giving that one unit
a name makes sense.
But then that means that something screwy is going
on. Not only are
the Europeans turning the metric system back into fractions,
but
they're giving names to them! We change everything into metric,
then
people find it more useful to use fractions, and then they give
names
to these fractions, and before you know it, we're back where
we
started from!
Then I got fired from my job in Brussels, or was
asked to resign, or
whatever you want to call it, I had LOTS of free time and
not much to
do. I read what I could find, but since my French and Dutch were
so
bad, this consisted of reading cook-books.
So I was reading these
cooking books, and it was weird, because
these recipes would have "half a
cup" of one thing, and an "eet-lapel"
or "koffie-lapel" of something
else.
So I said, "Hey Filip, what's an eet-lapel?" And he told me it's
an
eating spoon (which is really a soup spoon), and a koffie lapel is
a
coffee spoon, like the english teaspoons. And I say, "But hey, we're
in
metric-land! Dat gaat niet!" And he says, "Of course we use the
metric
system, but in that one case, they're just writing it that way
for the
easiness of the people." (ie, to make it easy on everyone).
So then I go
to my mother-in-law-to-be, and I say, "Hey, these
recipes call for cup of
something, how much is that exactly?" And
she pulls out her cup that she
drinks coffee from to show me, and I
say,"Yeah, but aren't different cups
sometimes different sizes?"
And then she said, "Ja zeker!" And she took
me to her china cabinet
and showed me all the different cups she has and all
the different
sizes there are. And then I said, "Yeah but Francine, doesn't
this
like, ever become a problem in knowing exactly how much to use?"
and
she shrugged her shoulders and nodded!
So that means the European
kitchens are less precise than American
and English. They just take any old
cup, any old spoon! So where
is the advantage of being metric? Then Filip
says, yeah, but MOST
recipes don't call for volumes, they call for weights,
and this is
true. BUT, how do you WEIGH a teaspoon of basil?!? How about
a
quarter teaspoon of nutmeg?!? And now he's going to baking school,
and
you should see him trying to weigh out his salt on our scale
that I only use
for weighing mail. It's so sad!
So then I get out my Joy of Cooking, and
all these crazy units sortof
start to make sense, to fit together. There are
even conversions
between weight/volume and length like in the metric system.
A pint
weighs a pound, and is 3 inches cubed. Half a pint is a cup, half
of
that is half a cup, half of that is a quarter cup, half of that is
2
tablespoons, and half of that is one tablespoon, and all these units
in
an ENGLISH kitchen can be measured out.
Then I start to realize that for
length there is a similar problem in
the metric system, in that you can't
divide a meter continuously by 2
without getting fractions. In the english
system, the rulers are
divided by quarters and eighths and 16ths, but the
metric ruler is
divided into units of ten, so any fraction of that you just
have to
guess. It is IMPOSSIBLE to divide a meter by three, because you
get
0.333333333 etc meters; using the metric ruler, a third on a
metric
meter doesn't exist! So then I start to think, hey, THAT'S why
there
are 12 inches in a foot, you can divide all sorts of ways, by 2, by
3,
by 4, by 6, no problem! Cool!
So we have this friend who is a
carpenter, and I see him, and I say,
"Hey, Freddie, when you have a board a
meter long, how do you divide
it into 3?" And he sortof gives me a funny
look, and says why would
he want to do that. And I say, well, How does that
work? Because in
the metric system, a third of a meter isn't marked on your
ruler so
what do you do? don't you ever have a board of one meter that
you
have to divide by three? And he says No. And I'm sortof
crestfallen,
and then he adds, we don't buy boards by the meter, the
standard lengths they
sell are in 120 centimeters.
!!!!!
SO now there is a NEW unit of
measurement, call it
the-standard-length- that-carpenters-buy-their-wood-in,
and it is 120
centimeters! The THICKNESS of the wood is even in a number that
is
easily divisible, that is, 2.4 centimeters, and they call that a
thumb!
How long before the length of 120 centimeters has a name all
to itself, and
how long before some lunatic is going to come along,
and say, "Hey, this-here
is darn CONFUSING having that-there unit
being 120 centimeters, and this-here
unit being 2.4, we need a NEW
measurement system, one where everything is in
units of ten!"
So this is getting really interesting, and I head to the
library,
and look up measurement, and ALL THROUGH HISTORY, societies
have
used units of measurements that are evenly divisible at least 3
ways.
Now we have this great metric system, and we can only divide
by 2 and 5
without getting a fraction.
Progress? Whassat?
Ok, and then there
is the temperature thing.
I always liked science because it was the one
field of study that
would be consistant throughout the world. I always found
it a waste
of time to study French or botany, because if, for example, you
were
on a desert island, these French words or plant names wouldn't do
you
any good. Science on the other hand was (WAS, past tense) a kind
of
ultimate truth for me, and this desert island thing used to be a
kind
of test as to whether something was valuable.
And it appears I'm
not alone, because last time I was in America, I
was voicing my opinion on
the metric system, and someone said, "If I
were on a desert island, I'd use a
system that was divisible by ten."
And I said, "But would your number system
be based on ten?" The ONLY
advantage of the metric system is that it can
easily be written
because we write our numbers in base ten. But that doesn't
mean that
if you were on a desert island YOUR number system would be in
base
ten. In fact, if you were on a desert island, and you needed a
ruler,
you wouldn't be ABLE to generate a precise system on base ten,
because
you'd have to estimate where to put the markings on the ruler!
What
you'd have to do is take your ruler, and divide it in half, and
that
in half, and put the markings THERE, and you'd end up with a
ruler
divided into 16 or 32 or 64 or something, but not ten!
And for
thermometers, it seems that is precisely what Fahrenheit was
up to.
Fahrenheit was playing around and playing around and finally
set ice water at
32, and body temperature at 96, so that there were
64 divisions between the
two. That way, no matter where you are in
the world, you can re-generate his
thermometer. You stick the
thermometer in ice water, and mark it there. Then
you stick it
under your tounge, and mark it there. Then you get a string,
and
fold it in half 6 times, and you have the 64 divisions between 32
and
96!
It was only after Fahrenheit died that body temperature was
changed
to 98.6. And this being because the boiling point of water was
later
deemed more reliable than body temperature. So boiling water was
set
at 212, and that made 180 "degrees" between it and the freezing
point
of water. But whoever made that change was probably
completely
ignorant of the problems Fahrenheit had gone through calibrating
his
thermometers.
Then the French Revolution came around, and a bunch
of intellectuals
were sitting around. And these intellectual types, they
aren't
sitting in labs, or making things, DOING measurements, they
just
looking at the measurements on paper. So to them, all these
fractions
were a pain in the ass, and they decided that everything should
be
changed.
So they spent SIX YEARS deciding how long a meter should
be, and then
passed all sorts of laws REQUIRING everyone to use the
measurements;
people were FINED for not using them!
So then we had a
new thermometer, in degrees Celsius. Then hot air
balloons were getting
popular and Boyle and Charles were playing
around and trying to figure out
how temperature affects volume and
pressure of gases. But there was one
hitch, that is, they wanted to
be able to divide by the temperature of the
gas. This was a problem
whenever the temperature was zero. So eventually a
number was found
that could be added to the measured temperature so that all
their
equations would work out nicely, and this new temperature was
called
Kelvin.
Then a bunch of intellectuals came around once more,
and decide that
these gas laws, instead of being a TOOL, used to DESCRIBE
the
properties of gas, that these laws were some kind of ultimate
truth.
And then they decided that since the equations won't work at
zero
Kelvin, that nothing can possible exist at that temperature!
And
now that's what they teach us in physics class! I HATE that! If
the fields of
science and history even overlapped a little bit, we
MIGHT be able to move in
a direction we refer to as "progress", but
the way it is now is completely
ridiculous.
Any praise for the metric system hits a raw nerve with me.
The metric
system is a symbol to me of the division of the ruling class and
the
people doing all the work. The ruling class (no pun intended)
makes
all these rules that are completely impractical, and everyone else
has
to sortof make do, find their way around it. The metric system
also
symbolizes to me this blind faith we have in science, that science
is
some kind of ultimate truth, instead of a tool we use to make
life
easier for ourselves. And because of this blind faith we
have,
"science" ends up making life harder, less practical for
ourselves.
