This was a recent discussion on a passenger railroad oriented forum. It started with a fellow who lives in Toronto describing the snowstorm there the previous evening, 20-30 cm worth. No attempt was made to make this a metric discussion; he was just reporting what he saw on the CBC or the Weather Network [Canadian counterpart to the Weather Channel in the USA], in the units used by those networks, and by him. Then:
Item 1 - Daniel: I know that Carleton is thrilled with your post, but for the rest of us, how much is that in terms of inches? ======= I am sitting in Canada, reporting what a Canadian agency predicted for a weather event in Canada. If you really refuse to accept that things are different up here, that's not my problem. After all, I don't fuss when someone in the US reports a US event in the obsolete units of measure no longer used except in certain depressed countries. Carleton does fuss about such things, but he's not my problem either. Come on, guys. If you complain that the US is way behind Europe and Japan in matters of import to this group (such as passenger trains and sewage systems) yet you refuse even to try to understand something as basic as the units of measure used in those places, who do you think you're fooling besides yourselves? Norman Toronto ON Item 2 - Marty: All Daniel did was ask a simple question, since you know what the conversion is, why be nasty about it. ======= My note was meant to be more tongue-in-cheek than nasty, and I apologize if anyone was genuinely offended by it. On the other hand, I honestly don't understand why I should have to translate units of measure that are used nearly everywhere in the world except the poor old United States. Especially when I first learned about them in, if memory serves, fourth or fifth grade, in an elementary school in Altadena CA, which was certainly then and I believe still is part of the United States. The metric system has been around many times longer than the Internet. If someone asked you to send him hand-written copies of everything you post here because he doesn't understand the Internet--even if he offered to pay postage--just because he doesn't want to be bothered learning something a lot more complicated than the SI unit system, would you do so quietly? I don't ask someone to translate miles or feet or inches or furlongs or armpit-and-brine degrees to international standard units whenever they pop up here. Why on earth should I be expected to translate the other way? I'm not militant about metric as are some members of this list, but neither do I see why I ought to go out of my way to prevent other members of this list from straining their brains by learning something `new' that has been around and important for longer than any of us has been around. Norman Toronto ON Item 3 - Garl [another participant] wrote: Hey...to me, the metric system may be logical; but, it's also quite boring! ---------------- Not entirely. Metric (SI) units have changed -- albeit in much smaller amounts -- over the years as well. For instance, the second is now defined in terms of the caesium-133 atom. However, until 1980 it was defined as "the fraction 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year for 1900 January 0 at 12 hours ephemeris time." The SI meter used to be defined as 1/10,000,000th the distance between the poles and the equator, but is not 1/299,792,458th of a light-second. These are not necessarily the same as the earth is a dynamic object that does change shape. (ObRail: just think about sun kinks...) Then we have the kilogram, which once was considered equal to the mass of one liter of water -- but no longer. Not only that, but the International Prototype Kilogram (IPK), built in 1879, has been found to fluctuate in mass relative to the national prototype kilograms over time for unknown reasons, and numerous proposals to redefine it in terms of fundamental constants are being discussed. So yes, the International System of Units (SI) -- the formal international subset of the metric system -- changes from time to time and place to place as well. For instance, like most other countries, the United States has an official kilogram measurement that is subtly different from the IPK -- 19 micrograms lighter in this case. Perhaps one day European engineers will have to consider whose definition of second they are operating within as they make sure to adhere to speed limits posted in km/s :-) -- John Item 4 - Lance: How 'bout this: 'merican miles. Each one 5280ft. as in 12 inches to the foot. ============================================================== Do you know how many Americans I've met over the past couple of decades have no idea how many feet are in a mile? Some of them have graduate eductions. Tom Pearisburg VA Item 5 - Marty: Agreed! Further, since I would estimate 98% of the members of the Board live in the United States, and the vast vast majority of them don't give two hoots and a darn about the metric system, it would seem to me to be it would just [rest truncated] Peter: I bet there are more than 24.3 A_A subscribers that don't live in the USA. I can think of 4 without straining, and they're just the ones from the "active pool". Wait, 5. Then there are those of us that do live here (cm, me) who would just as soon drop the old stuff and go with everyone else. ---------- Point of all this: On a discussion form that is not about metric, there were quite a few who felt that making the change is long overdue. For awhile, when I was opening the replies, some of which as you can see were quite well thought out, I started forgetting which list I was on! Carleton
