When South Africa and Australia started their metrication programs in the
1970's, one of the first things that they did was to ban the sale of measuring
equipment that showed imperial units. This resulted in metric units becoming
the default unit.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Hooper
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 5:49 PM
Subject: [USMA:37754] piecemeal metrication
On 2007 Jan 16 , at 8:38 AM, Mike Millet wrote:
That's why the best and smoothest transition in the US ... (will be) ...
rather from slow gradual economic and societal change.
"Slow" and "gradual" means difficult and expensive. During a long, slow
transition, both the old and new systems would be in effect causing a great
deal of confusion and extra work. Furthermore, when two systems are both in
effect, people would tend to continue using the old, familiar system. They
would not "gradually become familiar" with the new one.
Mike goes on to say:
give the US consumer some time ... (to become accustomed to dual labeling)
... then gradually introduce temperature and fuel and finally road signage
changes.
It's difficult to change one things at a time because there are so many
interconnections between units. If one changes fuel measurement at one time and
road signage (including distance) at another time, when do you change fuel
economy figures from miles per gallon to kilometres per litre (or litres per
100 kilometres)?
Do you first change from miles per gallon to miles per litre (when litres are
adopted) and then change from miles per litre to kilometres per litre at a
later time (when kilometres are adopted). That would mean having to make TWO
changes instead of just one for fuel economy alone (in addition to the
necessary changes from gallons to litres and from miles to kilometres.
Thus, instead of making a total of three changes at one time:
gal. to L,
mi. to km,
mi/gal to km/L
you'd have to make FOUR changes spread out over an extended period of time:
gal. to L,
mi./gal. to mi./L,
mi. to km,
mi./L to km/L.
Another example would be cooking times based on oven temperature and amount
of food. We have charts or directions in Fahrenheit and pounds; we will need to
get to Celsius and kilograms.
Do we make TWO changes, first from Fahrenheit+pounds to Celsius+pounds and
later a second change from Celsius+pounds to Celsius+kilograms? How foolish
when we can do it in one change if we convert all things simultaneously.
There are other relationships that cause would cause problems, too. We know
(actually I had to look up this first one) that there are 231 in^3 in a gallon
and 1000 cm^3 in a litre. If we convert volumes from gallons to litres before
we convert inches to centimetres, then in the interim (when we are using litres
and inches), do we need to know how many cubic inches there are in a litre?
(The answer is 61.023 7441, by the way.) Again, MORE conversions are needed
when changes are made in several steps instead of all at once.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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SImplification Begins With SI.
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