Dear Harry,
I will intersperse some comments about your email in red. My purpose
is not to disagree with you but to apply a different perspective to
your thoughts.
On 2008/08/05, at 3:45 AM, Harry Wyeth wrote:
Victor is right. I have been saying for years that nothing we--the
USMA--can do will move the USA toward true metrication. We can post
emails and write letters from now until 2100 and it won't change
anything.
I think that the USMA has done an incredible job keeping the metric
system alive and well in the USA and, in particular, keeping knowledge
about the metric system available to the public in the USA. Further, I
believe that everyone who comes into contact with the USMA is
encouraged to continue with their individual actions against the
appearance of non-metrication (even anti-metrication) in the USA. As
people look for guidance about the metric system they are often
looking for the 'social proof' that others have successfully adopted
the metric system and that they did so smoothly, quickly, and cheaply.
The USMA has been supplying this sort of evidence since its formation
in 1916.
What will change things--and about the only thing-- will be for
either the federal government
I have a trouble with claims of what more the Congress of the USA is
supposed to do. The earliest politicians (particularly Franklin,
Jefferson, and Washington) were all promoters of decimal metric
systems in the 1780s and 1790s. Jefferson and Washington gave the USA,
and then the world, decimal currency. Franklin and Jefferson were
active in France in the 1780s in promoting both decimal currencies and
decimal measurements; this was before France adopted their laws for a
decimal metrique system in the 1790s. The government of the USA was a
signatory of the Treaty of the metre in 1875. The metric system has
been legal for use in the USA since 1866; the government of the USA
was a signatory of the Treaty of the metre in 1875; and all USA
measures have been defined in metric terms since 1893 (and redefined
in metric terms in 1959). Now the Federal government of the USA
specifically says that the metric system is the preferred method of
measure for use in the USA. What, specifically, does the government of
the USA need to do now?
or a large corporation to "go metric" in a substantial way.
Sadly, this has already occurred in many major industries but it has
had little noticeable effect because of what I call 'dumbing down at
the door'. Consider the metrication of the automobile industry in the
1970s. All of the metric components now used in a modern car are all
fully metric so that each (of the approximately 10 000) parts can be
sourced from any supplier in the world as cheaply as possible in the
full knowledge that each component will fit with all other metric
parts. The only exceptions to this all-metric rule is the speedometer
in mph, the odometer in ml, the nominal tyre size in in., and the air
pressure in psi. You will note that these are the places where the
owners needs to interact in some way with their new car; so the car
makers hide the fact that all cars, from all makers, have been fully
metric since the 1970s. The appearance of being non-metric is simply a
very thin veneer of untruths.
If Exxon-Mobil started measuring oil by the cubic meter,
To the best of my knowledge, internationally traded oil is bought and
sold in tonnes. This is the simplest thing to do as the oil tankers
have Plimsoll lines that indicate the load of each vessel in tonnes so
it is a simple matter of filling the ship to the maximum mark allowed.
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterline ) The measured tonnes then
have to be dumbed down so as to complicate the oil pricing so that it
will not be understood by the general public. This is simply
obfuscation. For example, the generally quoted 'barrel' refers to a
container that never actually existed – some say it is 42 gallons
(USA), others say its 35 gallons (UK), and still others round it to
159 litres – but whatever assumptions about the rounding, the fact
remains that there never was an oil barrel.
or Microsoft began posting everything in SI,
The computer industry is another that has been fully metric for some
considerable time, probably beginning in the late 1970s but
metrication was completed in this industry by the early 1980s.
Consider the computer in front of you as you read this. It has a
central processing unit that was designed and made using nanometres as
the basic measurement. This central processing unit was then mounted
on to a chip designed and made using micrometres. The chips were then
mounted onto a mother board with millimetre spacings and then mounted
into cases (for both the computer and the screen) designed and made
using millimetres. All of this was then packaged and sold to you
according to the nominal, approximate, diagonal of the screen as
something like 'the seventeen-inch model'. The truth is that you are
facing an all metric computer supplied to you from an all-metric
industry that chooses to add a simple thin veneer of untruth so that
you do not know that the computer industry is all-metric.
In the special case of Microsoft, they apply their particular skills
to providing many in the world with software that recreates measuring
methods so that they are a cross-bred of modern decimal metric
measures and good old 16th century (pre 1585 to be exact) fractional
measuring techniques. As an example, the default margins and tabs in
Microsoft Word are set in inches and fractions of inches; if you
choose to apply their 'Metric' millimetre option, you are faced with
groups of 10 millimetres that are divided into quarters each of 2 1/2
millimetres!
or if the AP changed its stupid writing rules,
I agree with you on this. But as a writer of the Measurement chapter
in the Australian Government, 'Style manual for writer, editors and
printers' I know that this is a major achievement that has only a
small slow effect. It's important and this goal should be sought, but
don't expect too many quick results. I think that one of the issues
here is that the writing community, as a whole, are not very numerate
and sometimes that actively seek to avoid any subject that contains a
lot of numbers because they don't want to be embarrassed by revealing
their innumeracy.
or the feds began demanding that all PX suppliers sell milk in 2 L
containers,
Milk is already sold in metric units in the USA because the pint is
defined in terms of the litre. Again it's the business of applying a
thin veneer of lies so as not to face the truth that the USA is
already substantially metric.
or the Weather Service posted temps only in degrees C--these would
get things started.
As part of the international community of meteorologists, the Weather
Services of the USA have all of their thermometers and temperature
gauges calibrated in degrees Celsius or in Kelvin. They then have to
create a computer program to change this to Fahrenheit degrees to
confuse the public (for example, if they try to see what the
temperatures might be on their next holiday outside the USA). I
suspect that the meteorologist got so sick of telling these lies (by
doing the dumbing down conversions) that they have now automated this
process by writing a computer program to do the lying for them.
Until then, we will just muddle around, and around.....
Or you could apply a direct metrication process to your small corner
of the world. This might cause you to go off on a tangent toward
complete metrication but at least you don't go round and round any more.
My 4-year Olympic prediction for NBC, which I make every 4 years and
is always accurate, is that we will be treated to more commentary
about the 10,000 m run being "six miles", field events results in
feet and inches, and so forth. Just watch--if you can see through
the smog.
HARRY WYETH
I had forgotten about your warning on the reporting of the Olympics. I
will watch the media in the USA with interest over the next few weeks
for this sort of down-dumbing. Of course, everyone else in the world
will just get the metric distances, masses, and times without
alteration.
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
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