I just came back from a trip to Canada; Edmonton, Alberta to be exact. I came across a few metric items that some of you may find interesting.
I have found, on earlier trips as well as this one, that Canada is very metric and that the people are quite comfortable with it and use it. The following examples are the exception rather than the rule. They show a misunderstanding of some SI details more than to any resistance to metric measures. Weather forecasts on TV were consistently and properly metric, with just a couple exceptions. Air pressure was given in kilopascals using the correct symbol (kPa). The values were given to five digits, however, and I wonder whether that is beyonf the usefulness of the measurement to most people. (Values like 101.56 kPa.) Temperatures were consistently in Celsius although often, when a series or set of temperatures were shown, the unit symbol was omitted in part or in its entirety. When this was the case, there was always at least one main temperature that had the unit correctly shown, then the others were listed as pure numbers with no unit, or with the degrees symbol ( ˚ ) but no "C" for Celsius. Surprisingly, amidst all this nice metric stuff, the so-called "ceiling" was consistently reported in FEET! I know the airline people continue to use feet for the ceiling, but it seems to be that, for the general public the TV stations could omit it entirely, or, if given, could give it in units with which the general public is quite comfortable. Meat was sold by the kilogram but I often saw signs that gave the price as "... per Kg", rather than the correct "kg". Official highway signs seemed to be consistently proper metric, especially the permanent ones. However, some temporary signs (e.g. road construction signs) use the wrong symbol for metres, "500 M" instead of "500 m". One of the most curious examples, I thought, was in an elevator of a high rise building. The capacity was listed as "2500 LBS or 1134 KG". Clearly, the kilogram symbol should have been "kg", not "KG". In this case they could not use the lame (but nevertheless incorrect) excuse that "our equipment could only print capital letters" because the word "or" between the two values was clearly in lower case. On top of that, the kilogram value of 1134 was clearly a misapplication of the conversion from 2500 pounds. Surely the capacity of an elevator need not be stated precisely to four digits. The 2500 lb figure was probably just a round number, perhaps just stated to the nearest 100 lbs, so the value could probably have been reasonably rounded to 1200 kg. (of course local laws need to be considered and they might require rounding to a different value, but nonetheless one with only two significant digits would be more reasonable.) Generally, I think Canada gets an A, eh? Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA ========================== Make It Simple; Make It Metric! ==========================
