Great suggestion Pat.
The 10-10-10 date avoids the date format issue since 10-10-10 is good for
all three formats.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: USMA Metric Association ; Mitchell Sally B
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 5:11 PM
Subject: [USMA:46036] USA Science Festival 10-10-10
Dear Larry Bock,
What a wonderful opportunity you have to promote the final stages of
upgrading to the metric system for the USA.By choosing the fall of 2010 as your
preferred timing you could easily include the date 2010 October 10.
This date has the short form:
10-10-10
It is a Sunday and I presume that the USA Science Festival will include a
weekend to maximise your audience. This simple date could give you a great
publicity hook. And the debate that would ensue about whether the USA should
use the metric system would also provide loads of media coverage from which the
USA Science Festival would not suffer! If you decide to promote this date, you
will get support from Sally B. Mitchell at East Syracuse-Minoa High School in
New York – see http://jce.divched.org/hs/Journal/Issues/2009/Sep/abs1013.html
As you probably know the USA is predominately metric already but it needs a
push to get it over the consciousness line. Let me explain this a little:
1 Everybody in the USA drives an all-metric motor vehicle. Cars, trucks,
tractors, and motor bikes have been designed in metric and built in metric
since the 1970s, but then they are labelled with stickers such as mph or psi.
2 Even the inches and the foot you are using for your tent sizes at the USA
Science Festival are metric (currently in the USA inches are exactly 25.4
millimetres so a foot is exactly 304.8 mm)
3 Students in the USA all use metric computers that were designed and built
as all-metric devices that are then dumbed down to inch screen sizes and inch
page margins so that students do not know that they live in an all-metric
nation.
4 A major part of the foundation of the metric system arose in the USA from
the work of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com/who-invented-the-metric-system.html
5 Not using the metric system openly and honestly is costing the USA a great
deal of money – perhaps as high as a trillion dollars a year – see
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf
From my perspective – in Geelong in Australia – to be open and honest about
the use of the metric system in the USA is a obvious thing to do. However, I
suppose that your point of view could differ from mine. I was amazed last year
when the 'Scientists and engineers and 15 other organisations' made submissions
to the presidential candidates that did not refer to the metric system at all
even though they all use metric system units for all of their work every day.
See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AMetricationElephant.pdf
If you decide to go down the progressive metric path, I suspect that you
could gain support from members of the United States Metric Association so I
will copy this email to them and to Sally Mitchell.
Please let me know if I can help you with your development of the USA Science
Festival.
Cheers and best of luck with your project,
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.
