On 2008/09/03, at 6:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I was waiting for my prescription at Walgreen's this morning when I
noticed on the back shelf a large supply of boxed syringes in
different sizes.
What struck me (aside from the medical world still being stuck with
"cc's" rather than "ml") was that the major brand name used units
like 1/10 cc or 1/2 cc. To Walgreen's credit, their house brand for
the same products used "0.1 cc" and "0.5 cc".
Funny how years ago it was the medical profession that was perceived
by most Americans to be the major user (outside of science) of
"metric". Now these units look downright hokey to me. Can't wait for
them to upgrade to SI usage!
Ezra
Dear Ezra and All,
It would even be good to get the medical community to upgrade to the
decimal metric system as it was legalised in France in the 1790s.
If you need to argue the case, the history goes something like this:
Simon Stevin pointed out that all calculations in all trades,
professions, and crafts could be done with decimal numbers and decimal
fractions. In 1585, he pointed out that common or vulgar fractions
were redundant. Some folk are still having trouble with this concept;
for example the Reserve Bank of Australian dropped our interest rate
today by 1/4 of a per cent! Economists don't look like catching up to
the modernity of 1585 anytime soon.
John Wilkins took up the cudgels to promote decimal numbers and
decimal divisions of numbers when he developed his ideas for a
'universal measure' in 1668. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CommentaryOnWilkinsOfMeasure.pdf
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson learned about the ease of using
decimal numbers when they practised surveying using Gunter's Chain
that was divided into 100 parts.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson worked together to pass the law
that provided a decimal currency for the USA. Benjamin Franklin made
the printing plates for the notes and he devised and minted the first
one-cent coin.
The French philosophes and the French revolutionaries looked to the
USA for guidance on how to 'go decimal' in the 1790s as they developed
the decimal metric system.
The decimal nature of the metric system (and the SI) were strongly
supported by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who were
successively Ministers of State from the USA to France in the 1780s
and 1790s.
You can find all the details about these issues in the Metrication
timeline at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/MetricationTimeline.pdf
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/
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter/
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