Dear Stephen,
You may have noticed that I do not get involved with debates and
discussions about the relative values of the metric system compared to
all of the older so-called 'systems'. Nor do I respond to statements
like, 'I heard a polish farmer use the word, furlong, forty years
ago'. I don't respond to these discussions at all – but when tempted –
I think of an old saying that I learned from my grandmother about mud
wrestling with a pig:
'You both finish up covered in mud, but the pig enjoys it.'
My view is that supporters of the metric system are ultimately seeking
honesty in measurement, whereas supporters of earlier collections of
measuring words (which they often erroneously call 'systems') are
supporting dishonesty in measurement. To be fair, however, such folk
are not always deliberately doing this; their motivation might be
purely innocent but it has the same effect of supporting the dishonest
dealers who use old measuring words for some sort of commercial
advantage through obfuscation.
To my mind none of these can be called a 'system':
apothecaries, atomic, Bohr, British commonwealth, British empire,
Commonwealth, conventional, customary, electrodynamical, electronic,
English, geometric, Hartree, historical, human-scale, Imperial,
international, local, mesures usuelles (customary measures in French),
national, natural, Planck, quantum, royal, Schrödinger, standard,
stoney, traditional, troy, or the U.S. customary 'system'.
I believe that the metric system is the only system that ever existed
– all the others have simply been retrofitted with some metric system
properties and then relabelled..
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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