Dear Martin and All,
You are right in part that some attempts have been made to devise
alternate 'systems' to the metric system, I recall groups such as foot-
pound-second and foot-slug-second, but these sorts of attempts at
coherence were only intended to work for a limited range of physical
quantities – typically those that were important in physics and
engineering. Ay no time were thesse planned or intended to be fully
international, coherent, systems.
I'll stick to my thought that the metric system was the only system
ever invented:
For all time, for all people
As Condorcet put it in 1793.
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 2010/05/08, at 23:53 , Martin Vlietstra wrote:
Hi Pat,
I am not sure that I can agree with you regarding some of the
“systems” quoted – a number of those listed are built up using a
number of base units and are defined in such a way that they obey
the laws of mechanics. They have not been fully expanded – they
various units of measure do not have names unless they are based on
some physical concept. Unlike the imperial/customary “collection of
units”, they have been designed with certain principals in mind and
the rationale behind their basis makes interesting reading as well
as providing an insight into SI.
May I suggest that those who are interested visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_measurement
.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Pat Naughtin
Sent: 08 May 2010 01:11
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:47332] RE: Meter in UK conversation
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
to subscribe.
