If you had a champion swimmer, he probably could not set a world record in your
pool unless it was built to Olympic standards. That should convince them.
----- Original Message -----
From: STANLEY DOORE
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:22 PM
Subject: [USMA:38001] Re: mm vs. cm
I agree Mike that there should NOT be both English and metric road signs as
it would be very unsafe. Pasting over current signs with metric is a good way
to begin; however, the US should adopt the international sign/symbol for speeds
and speed limits. The sign is round with a number in the middle. The would
save on expensive aluminum material. The "km" could be placed in small
letters at the bottom of the circle beneath the number to help avoid confusion.
I haven't heard about the ridiculous thing you mentioned about high school
track coaches Mickey-mousing the track event lengths. Here and elsewhere I
know, track distances have been changed to metric standards.
I'm having a battle with Ohio Wesleyan U on the design specs for it's new
indoor swimming pool. I'm trying to get them to use the NCAA/Olympic standard
which is metric (metres). I'll probably see the President of OWU and other
influential people next month at OWU. We'll see where it stands then.
Regards, Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Millet
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 10:02 AM
Subject: [USMA:37995] Re: mm vs. cm
Funny you should mention that Stan, I know a few coaches on the local high
school teams that only just now switched to having their students run races in
meters. Before that the coach would convert it to feet and have them run it
and then they would be competing in meters.
I don't think that any distance should be in meters road sign wise unless
it's "All" in meters and kilometers. Mixing meters and miles leads to some very
dangerous problems with confusion about which unit is what and would in general
slow down the metrication process. If and when road signs go metric in the US
I'm sure what will probably happen is something similar to what did in Canada
where they put decals over the signs on a particular holiday and then
progressively replaced them as time went on. If we were smart we would be
putting SI signs in the ground right next to the mile markers but that's not
going to happen. That would take to much organization and planning for our
government to accomplish and our local governments to be comfortable with.
Mike
On 2/18/07, STANLEY DOORE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The comments below show why distances up to about a mile should be in
metres.
A quarter mile is 440 yards or 400 m, half mile is 880 yards or 800 m; 3/4
mile is 1200 m and a mile is 1600 m. You should remember this from
track.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pierre Abbat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" < [email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:14 AM
Subject: [USMA:37992] Re: mm vs. cm
> On Saturday 17 February 2007 15:43, Michael Payne wrote:
>> I vote for the comma, it's more easily seen than the dot, (.5 or ,5)
>> There
>> is a sign in Aspen that says Terminal .2 miles and I was telling
someone
>> one day that it was more like 200 meters then he pointed out it was
>> actually point 2 miles, I'd missed the point every time I saw the sign
>> for
>> a couple of years!
>
> That's why a zero should be written before the point. If you miss a dot
> in "0.5", you see "0 5", which wouldn't be written for 5, so it has to
be
> 0.5.
>
> I grew up with both dots and commas for the decimal point (my father
came
> from
> France, where they use the comma). For numbers in isolation, either
> convention makes sense to me. But when you have lists of numbers, the
only
> way that looks right is to use dots for the decimal point and commas
> between
> the numbers (not at the thousands).
>
> phma
>
>
--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
