With thanks to all of you who give me the thoughts necessary to generate these letters.
Mike Payne At the bottom of this email are web sites that can give some insight into how the United States loses probably billions in manufacturing business to foreign companies because we are the only country on the planet using an archaic leftover from the Roman Empire. We use a mish mash of units inherited from the British, feet, inches, pounds, ounces, etc. instead of the modern “coherent” Metric system which has only 7 basic units, this not only makes us less productive as a nation, it means we cannot manufacture and sell to any other country unless we make it metric with metric nuts, bolts, instructions, etc. What this means is that we have to use 2 different systems of measurement. Using "US Customary" units is akin to doing math in Roman Numerals, it is honestly that much more complicated than using metric. The Metric System is not just another system of measurement, it's an integrated system, one unit matches another. Example: 1 Liter water = 1000 milliliters = 1000 grams. A construction plan lists a span of 28,000,000 mm which is visible to the reader as 28,000 meters or 28 km, choose your unit, no conversion is required, just move the decimal place. Try 28 Million inches, or even 280 inches, it requires some time to figure out the feet and inches which is productivity lost. The US is a very productive nation but only because we don't give everyone 6 weeks vacation every year. The collapsed Hanger at Dulles Airport, Length 100 x 50 m. Snow weighs 10% of rain. If we have 80 cm of snow, it's 8 mm of rain. 1 millimeter of rain is 1 liter per square meter or 1 kg per square meter. Therefore the roof area of that hanger is 100x50=5000 m2 times 8 kg/m2 = 40,000 kg or 40 metric Tons (Tonnes) additional load. I did not need a calculator. Our children waste approximately one school year learning two systems and never really get to use one of them. I could go on and on. It might cost money to convert, but it cost much much more not to convert. All US car manufacturers changed to metric design and bolts, etc. in 1975, they found they saved money. See http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2007/05/07/smallb1.html Michael Payne 1 Thorton Court Potomac Falls VA 20165 703 395 8975
