It is the stated goal of the ASCE and the ASTM to move toward the use
of metric. Perhaps you can find information on their websites.
--
Scott Hudnall
Seattle, WA USA
http://www.gometric.us/
On Oct 3, 2007, at 12:26, Pierre Abbat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This week we're learning about soils. He gave us three problems today:
1. Given data on what percentage of a soil passed through various
sieves with
arbitrary names, plot the data on a semilog sheet with the log axis
labeled
in millimeters. The sizes of the sieves in millimeters are given.
2. Given the wet and dry weight of a soil sample in pounds, its
volume in
cubic feet, and the specific gravity of solids, compute various
numbers.
3. Make a compaction graph. The masses are in grams, the mold is
1/30 cubic
foot, and some other data are in "pcf".
Yesterday or the day before, when he was teaching this material, I
was still
working on the previous homework and couldn't listen to him. So
today I asked
him the meanings of terms such as "porosity" and "void
fraction" (which are
two ways of saying the same thing, like "chance" and "odds"), then
converted
everything in problem 2 to metric and started calculating. I asked
the other
students if I was doing it right (the prof left a bit early and we
stayed
late). They were more lost than I was, trying to make sense of a
formula with
the density of water in pounds per cubic foot in it - a number every
kid
learns in grams per milliliter in the kitchen.
This prof is the head of the civil engineering and surveying
departments. I
already asked him to teach in metric and told him that National
Metric Week
is next week. I can't go above him to the head of the department; he
is the
head. Whom can I write to about this?
Pierre
