Total BS.
Any system can become natural just by
use. There is no such thing has one having more superior ergonomic
properties then the other. This type of hype is what one will encounter
from imperialists who see imperial dying out and will come up with any crap that
will rally the masses into fighting hard to retain imperial. As we
approach the last 100 m, this type of nonsense will increase. It is
statements like those below that help increase the use of metric world-wide and
help further push FFU into oblivion.
You may post my comments to the site as a
rebuttal.
See below;
----- Original Message -----
From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, 2004-11-07 07:25
Subject: [USMA:31414] Fw: Metric system (ot) Was: RE:
[ISO8601] ISO 8601 -- 1000
> >From the ISO 8601 list.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "BAM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "bam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, 2004-11-05 17:37
> Subject: Re: Metric system (ot) Was: RE: [ISO8601] ISO 8601 -- 1000
>
>
>>
>>
>> There are other reasons, besides lethargy or perversity,
>> why SI has not quite caught on everywhere!
>>
>> One major reason for the failure of SI to become universal
>> is that its fundamental units are ill-chosen and have POOR
>> ERGONOMICS for homo sapiens, whereas the basic units
>> of the "English" system are comfortable and suitable for the
>> biological dimensions of our species (largely because those
>> units evolved from usage, wherein competing alternatives
>> faded out when found to be inferior.) Regardless of the
>> silly ratios between them (which Thomas Jefferson tried
>> to reconcile, with his own proposals for a decimally-based
>> English system), the approximate sizes of the English units
>> are far superior to those of SI. Consider:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "BAM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "bam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, 2004-11-05 17:37
> Subject: Re: Metric system (ot) Was: RE: [ISO8601] ISO 8601 -- 1000
>
>
>>
>>
>> There are other reasons, besides lethargy or perversity,
>> why SI has not quite caught on everywhere!
>>
>> One major reason for the failure of SI to become universal
>> is that its fundamental units are ill-chosen and have POOR
>> ERGONOMICS for homo sapiens, whereas the basic units
>> of the "English" system are comfortable and suitable for the
>> biological dimensions of our species (largely because those
>> units evolved from usage, wherein competing alternatives
>> faded out when found to be inferior.) Regardless of the
>> silly ratios between them (which Thomas Jefferson tried
>> to reconcile, with his own proposals for a decimally-based
>> English system), the approximate sizes of the English units
>> are far superior to those of SI. Consider:
WRONG! Units that have "faded out" did
so due to legislation. There were battles between those who wished to save
the units being discarded and those who preferred the changes. What we are
experiencing between metric and fFU is not new.
>>
>> 1. The gram is too doggone small! Most human usage
>> requires double-digit or triple-digit numbers of them to
>> be at all useful or meaningful in everyday human activity.
>> Kilogram, might have been OK as the basic unit for
>> humans (tho I think it is a bit too hefty), but that is not
>> a basic unit and requires a prefix as well as a number.
WRONG! The kilogram is the base unit in SI.
It is a quirk of history that it is prefixed. Even though some have
suggested a new non-prefixed name, no serious attention is taken. The
relative size of units is what one gets use to or is trained to
understand. If you are trained to use one number series, any others may
appear odd.
Engineers find the millimetre a very convenient and
user friendly size. Drawings done using only millimetres, allow for the
use of only one unit and in most case without decimal parts.
>> By contrast, note that - despite their rather inconvenient
>> ratios "ounces" and "pounds" are very comfortable in
>> human terms for everyday quantities (such as store
>> purchases or food preparation), while and tons provide a
>> reasonable unit for unusally-large masses we commonly
>> encounter. Likewise, "feet" and "inches" (again, despite
>> their unfortunate, arbitrary ratios) allow us to easily
>> describe most things we see and handle daily, using small,
>> whole numbers (with "miles" available to approximate
>> distances to be travelled or things beyond the horizon).
WRONG! As I stated above, the comfort comes from
what one is trained in and conditioned oneself to use. If you ask people
in the 97 % of the world using metric, they would find all of the FFU as
akward.
>>
>> 2. Basing the meter on one ten-millionth of the estimated
>> distance from pole to equator may have been very
>> satisfying, intellectually, but the result is a fundamental
>> unit that is awkwardly large - especially when united by
>> the density of water to a mass unit that is ridiculously tiny.
So what! The founders had to use something to
base the unit on, and it was the most logical at the time. It was
considered unvarying, not like usinf someone's foot. And many of the units
came close to the ones they replaced. If the metre was akwardly large,
then what does that say about the yard?
>>
>> 3. The density of water, upon which SI is based, requires
>> an unimaginably-large power of ten when expressed in
>> fundamental units of grams per meter cubed (even when
>> the value begins wi tha1.
?????? This person is a typical luddite, ie,
living in the past. Metric units may have started out using some of these
definitions, but have EVOLVED into mosre stabile units with definitions based on
the fundamentals of physics. Defining the metre by the earth and the
kilogram by the density of water has been done in over 125 years.
>>
>> 4. Seconds, the fundamental time unit, is not bad at all.
>> However, common time reconning, which is unlikely to
>> change (and which the promoters of SI dare not propose),
>> employs non-decimal multiples of the second, such as
>> 60 and 24.
Of course he accepts seconds, as they are also used in
FFU. If he denies seconds, then he is finding fault with a part of FFU and
that just can't be accepted.
>>
>> 5. Derived units, such as those for speed, also suffer
>> from the non-ergonomic choices of fundamental units.
>> Consider velocity, for example. Speed limit signs are
>> in Km/h and automobile speedometers report the number
>> of thousands of meters that would be travelled with no
>> acceleration for the next 3,600 seconds! (Meters per
>> second would make far more sense, in my opinion,
>> but that's not the issue, here.)
Nonsense!!!! Automobile speedometers do report
speed in kilometres per hour but distances are in kilometres to the nearest
tenth (100 m). If short distance signs are marked in hundred metre
increments then one can easily follow that on a metric odometer. One can
not follow distance shown in feet or yards on a tenth mile odometer.
Also, if we should be using metres per second to
measure speed, shouldn't imerial users be using yards per second and not miles
per hour? Why would metres per scond make more sense in metric, but not in
imperial?
>>
>> 6. The base ten, itself, is part of the problem.
>> Unless the Duodecimal Society succeeds in convincing
>> the public (and the legislators) that a radix divisible by
>> 2, 3, and 4 is preferable to one divisible by 2 and 5,
>> or unless those in the computer industr spread the word
>> about the benefits of octal or hex, we are probably
>> stuck with using the number of our fingers for our
>> place-value notation. That alone does not make the
>> powers of ten particularly useful, comfortable, or
>> natural - especially when large powers are required.
Extreme ignorance and stupidity. All that is base
10 about metric is the relationship between the some of the prefixes. All
units have a 1:! ratio with each other (eg. 1 W = 1 J/s = 1 N.m/s). There
is no requirement in engineering or elsewhere to use only ratios of 10 in
usage. In fact it is seldome used. In industry, the 100 mm module is
the base and it it is common to see materials in increments of it, and having
dimensions of 200, 400, 600, 900, 1200, 2400, 4800 mm, etc. The very fact
that this type of usage exists, proves the greater versatility of SI. You
have coherancy, consistantcy and easily relatable unit conversion
factors.
I think mentioning the Duodecimal Society really says
it all. To convert to different numbering base would cost a lot more then
either he or the world would want to spend.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> So much for my tirade regarding SI, which is not at all
>> in opposition to having a rational, decimally-based system.
>> It is sad that the attempt was flawed by poor (and untested)
>> fundamental unit choices. Too bad that this failure
>> (or, at least, partial failure) will serve to prevent universal
>> adoption of such a system for the for the forseeable future.
97 % of the people of the world would
disagree.
>>
>> Itruly wish Thomas Jefferson had been as successful
>> in his attempt to redefine the inch as one-tenth of the
>> typical length of a shoe (and other simlar ratios, involving
>> the then-very-approximate English units), as he was in his
>> spectacularly-successful innovation of decimal currency
>> (which even the Brits adopted, a couple of centuries after
>> our revolution).
>>
>> Sorry that, after all this, I have some sort of brilliant
>> solution to propose (other than reposting speed-limit
>> signs in meters-per secod, which at least gives some
>> clue about stopping distance!), but I do not expect that
>> co-existence of the two systems (or three systems,
>> if one includes the "MKS" vs. "cgs" dichotomy)
>> to wither anytime soon or even within our lifetimes.
>>
>> Bruce Alan Martin
>>
>>
>> P.S. Before sending this posting to the discussion
>> group for ISO8601 (of which I am an enthusiastic
>> proponent), I have decided to copyright it and perhaps
>> seek publication of something similar. Feel free to
>> excerpt freely (preferably with credif for lengthy quotes,
>> but I'm not too fussy about that). I mention this only to
>> avoid later accusations that of plagary, in case I use
>> some of it elsewhere.
I would be ashamed to copyright this nonsense or even
have my name associated with it.
>>
>> bam
>>
>>
>> johnmsteele wrote:
>>
>> >I am surprised by the nails and I can't think of a good reason.
>> >However, nautical miles are expressed allowed, although not
>> >preferred, in the SI system, and are defined as 1852 m.
>> >
>> >The reason for retaining them is that in spherical trigonometry
>> >calculations involving the earth's surface, such as great circle
>> >routes, celestrial navigation, 1 nautical mile is very nearly equal
>> >to 1 minute of arc. That in fact was the traditional definition.
>> >Since the earth is really an oblate spheroid, stating it exactly in
>> >meters while retaining the traditional approximation works ok.
>> >
>> >--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Lyngmo Ted" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]...> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>It's the same in Sweden. We're still using inches when talking
>> >>
>> >>
>> >about nails and wood,
How long are these inches in
millimetres? Is inch juat a trade name for 25 mm? Or does it still
go by an older definition? Or maybe it is the English inch of 25.4
mm? And even if one talks about inches in this sense, are the products
they are used with made to rounded inches or rounded millimetres? Is
something that is called two inches really 2 inches or 50 mm? how it
is made is more important than what it is called. See the floppy as an
example!
and nautic miles on the sea.
>> >
>> >
>> >>Kind regards,
>> >>Ted Lyngmo
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>> >
>> >
>> >>Kind regards,
>> >>Ted Lyngmo
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
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