That was me, not Pat. I received my BSEE in 1966 and MSEE, and EE in 1968. Perhaps SI was more prevalent in course VI, but my chemistry, physics, and other non-EE courses were all SI. I was under the impression my friends in course II (but not in things like Naval Architecture) were also receiving a primarily SI education; perhaps that was a misconception.
--- On Mon, 3/30/09, Stan Jakuba <[email protected]> wrote: From: Stan Jakuba <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:44240] Re: smoots To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Monday, March 30, 2009, 7:42 PM Pat: Those must have been better days or you were lucky to have enlightened professors. I graduated in 1970 and no (graduate) course I took in Mech. Eng'g had SI (or mksA) units in lecture or homework. Perhaps the names of prof's like Den Hartog, Rohsenow, Rogowski may "ring the bell." My son spent a decade at MIT and most of his courses were in SI but also included I-P. The machine shop work for undergraduates was all I-P. The drawings for the underwater exploration equipment he had been working on later were all in I-P. I recall the story of one student who designed a section of some equipment in metric for the sole purpose of obtaining metric tools at the Institute expense that he could use for working on this European car. On the other hand, prof. French of MIT has been an ardent promoter of SI, serving on committees. He eventually got bored with the slow progress. No other staff from MIT has been a promoter to my knowledge. Stan ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat Naughtin To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: 09 Mar 28, Saturday 15:44 Subject: [USMA:44161] Re: smoots On 2009/03/28, at 10:44 PM, John M. Steele wrote: I graduated from MIT a few years after Smoot. All of my courses were taught exclusively in SI, called rationalized mksa at the time. When a rare Customary units homework problem was thrown in the mix, the expected solution (required for full credit) was to convert to metric, solve, convert the answer back to Customary if the problem demanded. Dear John, This looks a lot like you are describing the approach taken by the Mars Climate Orbiter teams at NASA in 1999. This is true except for the bit where you say, 'convert the answer back to Customary'. Go to http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco991110.html where they say 'The 'root cause' of the loss of the spacecraft was the failed translation of English units into metric units …' However, please note that in reporting this, I am not in any way suggesting that NASA should change to smoots for interplanetary navigation. 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 to subscribe.
