Dear All,
This post by 'Toby' is interesting for its historical perspective
http://education.cymous.com/the-metric-system-past-present-and-future
But Toby loses his way when it comes to analysis. Toby writes:
Much of the opposition to metrication hinges upon the system’s
unfamiliarity. The English system, cumbersome though it may be, is
something we’ve learned to live with for years. We’re so familiar with
its issues that we think nothing of making English or metric
conversions between measurements when needed, or don’t realize just
how confusing the system really is.
I disagree with him here as I believe that the main retarding forces
to metrication in the USA are about false beliefs about the process of
metrication. As examples:
1 The belief in decimal fractions in schools and the endless sliding
of decimal points to do such things as to convert decimetres into
hectometres seriously retards the education of all children exposed to
this silly task. When these kids leave school they will predominately
join industries where the 'Rule of 1000' operates as it does in design
and construction for the computer industry (nanometres, micrometres,
and millimetres dominate with no centimetres) or design and
construction in the motor industry where millimetres and micrometres
are most common. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/WholeNumberRule.pdf
2 The belief in the efficacy of centimetres. Many people make an un-
thought-out and ill-considered conjecture that centimetres should work
in a metrication transition. I believe that there is no evidence to
support this conjecture as I have observed that metrication programs
that include the use of centimetres are painfully SLOW! See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/centimetresORmillimetres.pdf
3 The belief in metric conversions. Many people promote the idea that
doing metric conversions – especially from metric system units to old
measuring words – will somehow produce a metricated mindset in the
minds of the public. I have seen no evidence that the metric
conversion approach actually works, and I see no evidence that the
metric conversion approach has ever worked in the past. To my mind the
many thousands of metric conversion charts, tables, and software
packages serve no purpose other than to delay the inevitable
metrication of the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/metric_conversion.html
4 The belief in numeracy clouds the judgement of highly numerate folk
who have great facility in handling numbers and calculating
conversions. Numerate people almost invariably scream the words. 'But
don't they know that all they have to do is move the decimal point'
without the understanding that this is indeed true – the person they
are screaming at has no knowledge of decimal points at all. From a non-
numerate recipient of this abuse I recall this comment, 'What's a
decimal and what's the point?'. Innumeracy is far more common than
numerate people like mathematicians, scientists, and engineers can
comprehend from a position based on their own skills. In their book,
Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath refer to this tendency as 'the curse
of knowledge' where knowledgeable people assume that everyone else has
their knowledge, skills, and complete comprehension of the expert's
jargon. See http://www.madetostick.com/theauthors
5 The belief in, and the use of, decimal divisions applied to old
measuring words. These include mils (of inches), thous (of inches),
decimal inches, decimal feet, decimal yards, decimal chains, decimal
miles, and so on. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/USADecimalisationAndMetrication.pdf
This was the concept put to the Congress of the USA by Thomas
Jefferson in 1790. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States
6 The belief, and widespread practice, that it is a good thing to hide
metrication progress in the USA and indeed the hiding of all
references to the metric system and to metric system units wherever
they occur. I see the supporters of the metric system as promoting
honesty in measurement, and conversely I see the supporters of old
measuring words as promoting dishonesty in measurement. This is a
harsh statement as often the promoters of old measuring words don't
intend to be dishonest but nevertheless they have the same effect
whether they intend dishonesty or not. Consider the case of the daily
announcement of the oil price in barrels. An actual, real, physical
oil barrel quoted never existed – there never was an oil barrel made
or filled with oil. The oil is taken from the ground measured in
either litres, cubic metres, or more conveniently in kilograms or
tonnes using the plimsol lines on the side of an oil tanker. This
amount of oil is then converted with a conversion factor into a
mythical barrel by someone in the oil industry who knows that they are
telling an untruth and then perpetrating this untruth on the public –
in short they are lying and they know it. From there the oil price in
barrels is spread widely by people such as journalists who spread this
lie in all innocence as they give the public the 'Finance News'. The
net effect of this lie, and its probable purpose, is to avoid having
members of the public notice the difference between the current price
of crude oil and the price that they have to pay at the pump. In
Australia, the current price for unleaded petrol is about $1.30 while
the oil price is quoted as $77 USD following a stock market tumble on
2010-05-06. Using a factor of 159 to change this from the mythical
barrel to litres this equates to about $0.48 USD per litre or 55 cents
in Australian currency. My suspicion is that if the oil companies were
honest and reported international oil prices in litres, there might be
a tendency for Australians to ask: 'The oil companies pay 55 cents and
I pay $1.30 where does the other 75 cents go?'
You will find more about these issues at http://www.metricationmatters.com
that has recently been revised.
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
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