Actually - any died in the wool cricket fan will tell you that the pitch length is really a chain (which happens to be 22yds) - but that's probably getting into the "train spotting" depths of sport fandom ! ;-)
BTW - The US does actually have an international cricket side. It's probably a good opportunity (if a little off-topic) to remind people that 'England & Wales' have just won the most hotly competitive series - that is - "The Ashes". Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 16:24:52 -0700 From: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:45780] RE: Mathematics improvement due to metrication To: [email protected] As an American, I don't know squat about cricket. However, I wonder if that rounding is not, in fact, due to Wikipedia. This link claims to be a copy of the official rules and says http://www.lords.org/data/files/laws_of_cricket_2003-8685.pdf LAW 7 THE PITCH 1. Area of pitch The pitch is a rectangular area of the ground 22 yards/20.12m in length and 10ft/3.05m in width. It is bounded at either end by the bowling creases and on either side by imaginary lines, one each side of the imaginary line joining the centres of the two middle stumps, each parallel to it and 5ft/1.52m from it. See Laws 8.1 (Width and pitching) and 9.2 (The bowling crease). In fact, dimenisons appear rounded to the centimeter through as much of the book as I looked at for the playing field, but the ball to the nearest millimeter.. --- On Tue, 9/8/09, Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> wrote: From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:45778] RE: Mathematics improvement due to metrication To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 7:02 PM Dear Martin, Also for the benefit of people who don't know the game of cricket – the rules have changed. The Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_cricket says: The Marylebone Cricket Club is the framer of the Laws of Cricket, the rules governing play of the game. … The Laws retain the Imperial units as they were originally specified, but now also include metric conversions. The metric conversions are interesting as they not only convert the old measures but also round them sensibly. For example, the length of a cricket pitch in the old rules was 22 yards. Assuming that these are the metric yards of exactly 914.4 millimetres, then a direct conversion would give a pitch length of exactly 20.1168 metres. However, it seems that this has been sensibly rounded, in the Laws of Cricket to 20 metres. I quote again from the wikipedia article: Law 7: The pitch. The pitch is a rectangular area of the ground 22 yards (20 m) long and 10 ft (3.0 m) wide. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html 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. On 2009/09/09, at 07:17 , Martin Vlietstra wrote: … I agree, but I have never seen “A cricket ball travels at 85 mph for 22 yards. How long does it take to travel that distance”? (For the benefit of American readers, the standard cricket pitch is 22 yards long). From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 07 September 2009 23:26 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45762] RE: Mathematics improvement due to metrication There are questions like 'a car travels at 70 mph for 10 miles.....' - I've seen many like that. Also when teaching about conversions I've seen questions asking for answers using 'either metric or imperial'. Martin - in the past I've directed you to websites showing such questions and confirmation about being curriculum based. From: [email protected] To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Subject: RE: [USMA:45750] RE: Mathematics improvement due to metrication Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 20:15:46 +0100 The UK curriculum only teaches children how to convert between imperial and metric units (approximate conversions only). It does not teach children how to manipulate imperial units. For example, no child in the UK is taught how to solve the problem “Find the average of 3lbs 6oz, 4lbs 2oz, 6lbs 15oz”. They are however taught how to solve the problem “Find the average of 1.53kg, 1.88kg and 3.15kg”. They might even be taught how to use the “Average” button on their calculators. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 06 September 2009 22:37 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45750] RE: Mathematics improvement due to metrication I was at school in the 80's and at that time they had dropped imperial from the curriculum completely (aside from Teacher/kids talking casually using imperial terms, of course!) Shortly after they made imperial part of the curriculum including conversions to and from, usage, etc. In science classes the units were and still are only metric though. From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:45745] Mathematics improvement due to metrication Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 14:58:23 +1000 Dear All, The Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6138456/Maths-standards-no-better-than-mid-70s.html and the Daily Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211345/Maths-skills-standing-thirty-years-GCSE-grades-soaring.html have both reported that metrication has helped students in the UK with decimals knowledge. Here is the quote from The Telegraph: It found secondary pupils were much more familiar with decimals than they were 30 years ago. Researchers put this down to “cultural changes” including metrication and the increased use of calculators and computers. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html 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. New! Receive and respond to mail from other email accounts from within Hotmail Find out how. Use Hotmail to send and receive mail from your different email accounts. Find out how. _________________________________________________________________ Access your other email accounts and manage all your email from one place. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/167688463/direct/01/
