[USMA:34989] Re: Metric converter web site?

[Pat Naughtin]

Title: Re: [USMA:34984] Re: Metric converter web site?

Dear Han,

Thanks for these insights into the early history of metrication.

Your report on the early days in the Netherlands of the early 18th century reminded me that most of the activities about the metric system in Australia and in the USA during the 1970s were about metric conversion. The school texts were, in particular, fully laden with numerous examples converting between old pre-metric units and metric units, but worse, there were also many examples changing from metric units to various old pre-metric measures.

Over many years, I have collected books intended for helping people 'convert' to the metric system. Most of these have extensive sections detailing how to do metric conversions.

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin LCAMS
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.metricationmatters.com
61 3 5241 2008

LCAMS means that Pat has been recognised as a 'Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist' with the United States Metric Association.
Pat is also a Member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and a Member of the International Federation for Professional Speakers.

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on 2005-10-23 20.06, Han Maenen at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Both sides are right. People who are fluent in metric often need to convert
> and then a converter comes handy.
> The question of conversion for those learning metric was already alive in
> the beginning of the 19th century, when The Netherlands were metric. There
> was a struggle between two 'schools' of thought.
> "What is necessary during metrication and will be needed for ever?" was a
> question in a school book.The answer was given: "Conversion from new to old
> and back will always be in need". One of the many school books that gave
> priority to the 'need' to convert from old to metric and back. Pupils were
> tormented with endless conversions; as a result they may have blamed the
> metric system for that. Outside the schools, the environment was changing
> only very slowly, meaning that during the first decades of metrication, they
> used the units of their elders - non metric.
> I have even seen a booklet for teachers with the
> misleading title "A short outline of the decimal system of weights and
> measures". Those who opened it found out that it was about conversion only.
> The booklet was targeted at metric-fluent people, who should be tought about
> the 'close relationships between the old and the new system'.
> Conversion threatened to become a new 'skill' in arithmetic.
> Here is an example, but I won't work it out: Convert 7 feet 11 inches 7-3/8
> line Rhineland measure to metric.
> The teaching method required the decimalization of the old units first and
> then the conversion. After some very nasty calculations the outcome was 2.44
> m. As awful as making up invoices with ton.cwt.qr.lb/l.s.d.
>
> Those who were in charge of metrication detested this 'conversion' business.
> They attacked it in magazines for teachers, they wrote school books. which
> were 'metric system first' and only at the end of the course they had a
> little time for the conversion of a few common units, to prevent being
> cheated. In the course of time, the conversion 'school' slowly lost ground
> and the metric system proper took its place.
>
> Han
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Elwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, 2005, October 22 17:31
> Subject: [USMA:34969] Re: Metric converter web site?
>
>
>> At 21 October 2005, 10:30 PM, Pat Naughtin wrote:
>>> To provide a link to a metric conversion page is not, in my view, a good
>>> idea.
>>>
>>> The process of metrication is not encouraged by metric conversions; or to
>>> be more blunt, metric conversions are a direct impediment to metrication
>>> progress.
>>
>> I agree with your position that doing conversions impedes the process of
>> LEARNING metrication.
>>
>> However, once someone knows metric, they may still have to do a variety of
>> conversions in their work. This is particularly true of engineers, who are
>> my company's main audience. I certainly know metric, but regularly refer
>> to my company's rulers or to ASTM/IEEE 10 2002 for conversion factors.
>
> <snip>
>