Dear Stumped,
I have just read and enjoyed your Q&A, Who will be the first metric
president? at: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/stumped/2007/12/
who_will_be_the_first_metric_president.html that was passed on to me
by a friend in the USA.
Another question and answer might go like this:
Dear Stumped,
How many people in the USA use the metric system right now — today?
When I visited the USA earlier this year I was stunned to find how
many people already used the metric system every day. This was
especially true in the automotive, computing, electrical, and
manufacturing industries and in the professions such as medicine,
optometry, and generally in science. I returned home to Geelong in
Australia thinking that about 75 % or more of the people in the USA
use the metric system in their daily work.
Pat Naughtin
Geelong Australia
P.S. It occurred to me to ask you this question after I read your
answer to Dave Hecock's question, Who will be the first metric
President?
Dear Pat,
The answer to this question is a little difficult because many people
in the USA do not want to know the answer to your question — at all!
The answer to, How many people in the USA use the metric system now?
is all of us.
That's right, every citizen of the USA uses the metric system every
day of their lives for everything they do. This is because measures
like feet and inches have all been defined in terms of the metric
system since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and this was upgraded in
1959. The USA has had two feet (ha ha) since the yard was redefined
from the 1893 yard (3600/3937 metres) to the 1959 yard of exactly
0.9144 metres. But both the old yard (with its feet and inches) and
the new yard (with its feet and inches) — that we use in the USA
every day — are both metric yards by the definitions set by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Washington DC.
Every time anyone uses an inch in the USA they are really measuring a
'metric' inch of 25.4 millimetres (exactly) and every time they buy a
pound of anything they are measured against a 'metric' pound of
453.592 37 grams (exactly).
If you are not sure how much you use the metric system every day
download a copy of the article, Don't use metric from http://
www.metricationmatters.com/docs/DontUseMetric.pdf
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin helps people understand how to go about their
metrication upgrade– quickly and easily – by helping them avoid
mistakes that he has made himself, or that he has seen made by others
during his more than 35 years of involvement with metrication
matters. Contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pat specialises in the modern metric system based on the
International System of Units (SI), but he is mostly concerned with
the processes that people use for themselves, their groups, their
businesses, their industries, and their nations as they go about
their inevitable metrication process. See: http://
www.metricationmatters.com/
Pat Naughtin is a highly knowledgeable metric enthusiast, who is also
a writer, professional speaker, editor, and publisher. He spoke in
many places in the USA in 2005 and his most recent speaking tour, in
2007, included Singapore, Paris, London, Toronto, Washington,
Tennessee, Colorado, Idaho, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Recent
clients have been the United Kingdom Metric Association, The Canadian
Metric Association, the United States Metric Association, NIST in
Washington, Google in San Francisco, and NASA in Los Angeles.
