On 2010/07/02, at 13:00 , [email protected] wrote:
The only problem that I see is that NASA is perpetuating the use of
vulgar fractions, which I am convinced is a terrible idea.
I hope someone educates them to start using 50 cm (or 0.5 m)
instead of "half a meter".
Regards,
Ezra
Dear Ezra,
This looks a lot like the discussion that took place in the USA before
decimal currency of dollars and cents was introduced in 1792. In the
1780s some people, such as Thomas Jefferson, promoted a decimal
currency while others, perhaps George Washington, were in favor of
dividing currency into halves, quarters, and so on. Eventually a
compromise was reached where both decimals and fractions were
incorporated. This is still the situation with the currency of the USA
in 2010.
Basically Thomas Jefferson failed in his attempt to get an all-decimal
currency for the USA. He was however successful when he promoted his
decimal ideas in France while he was ambassador to that nation in the
1780s. I doubt that the French philosophes would have been able to
resolve this issue (decimals, binary fractions, 12s, 20s, or a
combination of all of these) without the pressure from Thomas
Jefferson and his use of the successful decimal currency component as
an example to convince the 'philosophes' that decimalisation was
possible. As we now know this led to the success of the 'decimal
metric system' in France and its subsequent success as the metric
system in all other nations.
By the way, it is my view that NASA would be well advised to work in
millimetres rather than centimetres. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/centimetresORmillimetres.pdf
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
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
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and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
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for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Hooper" <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 1, 2010 2:37:19 PM
Subject: [USMA:48015] Mars roving vehicle
In a news release from NASA (at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1703.html)
there is an interesting description of the size of the wheels on
the new Mars rover vehicle:
" Curiosity's six-wheel mobility system, with a rocker-bogie
suspension system, resembles the systems on earlier, smaller Mars
rovers, but for Curiosity, the wheels will also serve as landing
gear. Each wheel is half a meter (20 inches) in diameter."
Note that, not only is it both in Ye Olde English and in metric, bit
the metric is the primary. There may be some hope for NASA yet.
The photo is interesting, too.
Bill Hooper
1810 mm tall
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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SImplification Begins With SI.
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