Dear Aaron,
I'm sorry if I upset you, I didn't mean to. My intention was to reveal
the secret knowledge that is hidden when you look at an an apparently
uncomplicated instruction like:
Convert ten yards into metres
To comply with this instruction properly you should at least take into
account the fact that of the two different yards currently available
in the USA, you have chosen only one of these. This has the effect of
hiding the fact that there is a duality in the USA. It also hides the
multiple yards that have existed previously.
More importantly, however, it gives the illusion to your students that
there is the metric system and there is another single alternative
system and this is simply not so. The truth is that there is the
metric system and there is no other system; there is only the remnants
of all the thousands, perhaps millions, of old measuring words, with
many different definitions, left over from previous centuries.
My point is that the instruction, Convert ten yards into metres, hides
this. This hidden complexity is so common that – as you say – almost
100 % of citizens are quite unaware of the complexity of old measuring
words and by contrast they also remain unaware of the fundamental
simplicity of the metric system.
The tragedy of this misunderstanding is that it delays the process of
metrication remarkably.
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 2009/10/09, at 14:38 , Aaron Harper wrote:
While I cannot say that I speak for 100% of Americans, I think I can
safely state that when most people in the USA refer to a "yard",
they are talking about the one with 36 inches in it. And, each one
of those inches is equal to 25.4 mm. We don't know what year it was
approved, agreed to, standardized or redefined. What's more, we
don't care. It equals thirty six 25.4mm inches.
Unfortunately, the point of my post was pretty much missed by
everybody that responded. My point is, that the PROCESS of doing
conversions develops skills that are related to and involved in the
PROCESS of SOLVING problems. If a person can't set up the problem,
then they can't solve it. If you can't set up the factors to
perform a lengthy conversion, then you can't perform the
conversion. The processes are very similar. Critical thinking and
reasoning skills are only developed through practicing them. You
can't look them up in a book or an ISO standard.
If you withhold the teaching of the process of doing conversion
completely, or until high school, you are withholding a tool that is
an easy and fun way to start getting kids to THINK about what they
are doing and why, and what they can do with a given piece of
information.
I didn't mean to touch a sensitive spot, but I get tired of hearing
the members of this forum run down Americans as being "dumb" or
"inferior" because we haven't yet adopted the SI to the degree that
many out there think we should.
Best regards.
Aaron Harper
On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 12:19 AM, Pat Naughtin <[email protected]
> wrote:
On 2009/10/08, at 14:40 , Aaron Harper wrote:
Having a student have to figure out how to get from one unit to an
equivalent unit in another system
Dear Aaron,
I am having trouble with your line, 'Having a student have to figure
out how to get from one unit to an equivalent unit in another system
…' as I know of only one system of measurement.
And I am also sure that only one system of measurement has ever
existed.
When the decimal metric system was developed from Wilkins universal
measure in the 1790s, it became the world's first measurement
system. Subsequently this first idea for a measuring system evolved
from the decimal metric system through the simpler name of metric
system to the International System of Units (SI).
As you know this is a complete system of units that is able to
measure everything from the smallest to the largest things in the
entire Universe. As Condorcet put it in the early 1790s, the decimal
metric system is:
'for all time; for all people'.
I am aware that there were subsequent refits of bits and pieces of
various small groups of old measuring words. The UK tried to develop
a decimal currency based on 10 florins to a pound in about 1824
while they held to the idea of 24 pennies to a florin.
Some scientists tried to copy the coherent properties of the metric
system with their foot-pound-second "system" and the foot-poundal-
second "system" while some engineers tried to do the same with their
foot-slug-second "system"; all done while the foot changed its
length in, at least, these years: 1824, 1834, 1855, 1893, and 1959.
I find it impossible to recognise these attempts as comprehensive or
universal measuring "systems".
The point that I want to make is that it is not possible to convert
from one system to another system when there has only ever been one
single system – the metric system – that is formally known as the
International System of Units (SI). All the rest are just more or
less random collections of old pre-metric measuring words.
Now let's consider an actual conversion problem.
Convert ten yards into metres.
This problem should not even be attempted until you answer this
question:
Which yard do you mean? Are you talking about the 1859 metric-
defined international yard, the 1893 metric-defined yard, (the
statute yard or the survey yard of the USA), the interim yard
between 1834 and 1855 based on the length of a pendulum with no real
fixed length, the 1855 UK yard based on an artefact, the 1824 UK
Imperial yard (1832 in the USA) that got burned with the UK Houses
of Parliament in 1834 or one of the many earlier yards that appeared
from time to time all with slightly varying lengths (possibilities
here are three Elizabeth I feet, the Edward I ulna, or three Roman
feet, etc.)?
If you don't ask all of these questions you infer that there are two
"systems" metric and only one other, when the facts are that there
has only ever been one system – the metric system as stated above –
and all of the other old hodge-podge of measuring words with
multiple definitions that have varied through time.
Hhhrrrmmmph!
P.S. Apologies for being so grumpy – you've hit a pet peeve!
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.
