You have beautifully amplified my phrase "trying to embrace". I agree
with your expansion of that. On those opportunities I have for providing
metric education to "beginners", the universal response initially seems
to be to try to couch metric units in terms of our American Hodgepodge
units (I coined that appellation, by the way). Those students cling
desperately to the units they think they understand (though they really
don't) in a tight embrace as they glance nervously at the approaching
and inevitable metric system.
Standing with one foot on the dock and one foot in the rowboat is not a
stable condition in the long term. Nor is adopting the metric system
while trying to maintain in firm embrace the units one used prior to
that. As well you know and have expounded on elegantly, Pat.
Jim
Pat Naughtin wrote:
Dear Jim,
This is a somewhat belated reply to your email of January 7 (below).
I wanted to pick up on a point you made that:
/It seems to me that our economy could benefit from the efficiencies of
working in just one system of measurement, namely the simpler one of the
two we now try to embrace./
I don't think that the situation is as simple as you say.
Firstly, you are not dealing with a simple choice between two 'systems';
you are dealing with a choice between the metric system — the only
'system' yet devised for international and coherent measuring — and a
hodge-podge of old measures many of which have the same name but many
different definitions and values. Consider the many different historical
and current definitions of acre, foot, inch, ounce, pound, ton, and yard
as examples.
Secondly, you are dealing with something else that I think is far worse
that the simple choice you suggest.
This is the conversion between units of the metric system unit and all
of the the old pre-metric measures that I mentioned above. You might
recall that in the article, '/A word about global warming/', I mentioned
93 different ways to describe the same amount of energy (and these
require 8556 conversion factors to convert from any one of these units
to any other) when only one unit for energy, the joule, is required.
See: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AWordAboutGlobalWarming.pdf
for the original article.
By the way, as you know I have tried to put a numerical value on what it
costs the USA to avoid the metric system.
See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf for
my views on the '/Costs of non-metrication/'.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern
metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save
thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their
businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different
trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and
government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's
clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the
metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA.
See http://www.metricationmatters.com/
<http://www.metricationmatters.com/>for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or subscribe to the free
'/Metrication matters/' newsletter at
http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter/
On 2008/01/07, at 5:50 AM, James Frysinger wrote:
I won't say that our incomplete metrication is entirely to blame, but
it certainly is not a helpful factor in our declining share of world
trade, the shrinking value of the dollar, and our being passed by the
UK in GDP per rata. Note this news article quoted on foxnews.com from
The Times (London). Hmmm, didn't the UK just recently finish all but a
few items on its to-do list for metrication?
It seems to me that our economy could benefit from the efficiencies of
working in just one system of measurement, namely the simpler one of
the two we now try to embrace.
With our shrinking participation in the world market we seem to be
working ourselves toward becoming and "island" nation and toward a
minor role in world economics.
Jim
Report: U.K. Set to Pass U.S. in Standard of Living
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Living standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for
the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the
respected Oxford Economics consultancy, the Times of London reported
on Sunday.
According to the Times of London report, the calculations suggest
that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now
hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century
of playing second fiddle to the Americans.
It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year,
compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of
the pound against the dollar but also the U.K. economy’s record run of
growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s.
In those days, according to Oxford Economics, Britain’s GDP per capita
was 34 percent below that in America, 33 percent less than in Germany
and 26 percent lower than in France. Now, not only have average
incomes crept above those in America but they are more than 8 percent
above France (£21,700) and Germany (£21,665).
“The past 15 years have seen a dramatic change in the UK’s economic
performance and its position in the world economy,” said Adrian
Cooper, managing director of Oxford Economics. “No longer are we the
‘sick man of Europe’. Indeed, our calculations suggest that UK living
standards are now a match for those of the US.”
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
