I saw something similar in John Grisham's book "The Broker" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broker). Most of the story takes place in Italy and distances are described in kilometres, but Grisham missed a trick regarding temperatures.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ressel, Howard (DOT) Sent: 09 April 2012 14:01 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51597] Re: tonne--yeah, right Observation: What are going to see, for a long time, is non metric vernacular in our daily lives. I see it in Canada when I visit and on TV shows from England and even from things I've seen in Australia and other metric countries. It's even in a book I'm reading, a Science Fiction novel in the not too distant future. The book is about a US and separate joint Russian/Indian mission to a near earth object (really a space ship) and the missions are both run and discussed in SI, the author did a good job with this but every once in awhile they slip in some US Customary, primarily as vernacular, using things such as that object is about a mile away then in the next sentence referring to something as exactly 400 m away. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stanislav Jakuba Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 8:24 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51596] Re: tonne--yeah, right Paul: Cannot agree with you more. As you wrote about the experiences in your practice, calling unit sizes by different names is DANGEROUS. There are so many "tons" that using Mg should be the prime safety concern. Beside, citizens of every country understand (are taught) that using only one language of measurement (SI) and one unit for ......... is good for the world ("used with SI" - what a way to destroy the beauty of SI). Concerning the useless are, it was spelled "ar" for generations. I guess, the English like the letter e. I feel sorry for it as hardly ever anyone pronounces it. Ignored like the "e". I noticed your Middland story and was disappointed by your not using SI as the wind people mostly use the SI m/s. !4 m/s happens also to be the favorite wind speed for wind mills. Stan Jakuba On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Kilopascal <[email protected]> wrote: I agree with you about the ton/tonne, but for now we are stuck with it due to its universality. At least the tonne is equal to the megagram and can be thought of as such. The mental conversion is very simple. The hectare is actually a perfect unit for area as it is equal to exactly one square hectometre. However, the are (100 m^2) from which it is based is incoherent with SI as it stands. The are should be equal to 1 m^2. When dealing with areas, the prefixes should not be understood as being factors of 10, but of factors of 100, such that if 1 are (symbol: a) were assigned a value of 1 m^2, the dekare would be 1 square dekametre, the hectare would remain as it is, being one square hectometre, the kilare would be 1 square kilometre. Going the other way, the deciare would be 1 square decimetre, the centiare would be 1 square centimetre, the milliare would be 1 square millimetre, etc. If the stere were reintroduced for volume, then one stere would equal 1 cubic metre as it originally was, the dekastere would be 1 cubic dekametre, the hectostere would be 1 cubic hectometre, the kilostere would be 1 cubic kilometre. Going the other way, a cubic decimetre would be a decistere (this would replace the litre as the litre is not coherent in SI), a cubic centimetre would be a centistere, a cubic millimetre would be a millistere. Because areas and volumes create a factor of 100 and 1000 between each prefix, the prefixes centi, deci, deka and hecto become practical and useful. When the prefixes above kilo and below milli are factored in, the gap becomes huge, but such areas and volumes larger or smaller than kilo and milli would rarely if ever be encountered, only by scientists. I don't think the are is presently ever used in real life, so there should be no problem redefining it as 1 m^2. Also, it presently is not a part of SI so it shouldn't matter if its old definition was 100 m^2, but its SI definition would be 1 m^2. SI doesn't have to recognize the old definitions of units outside of SI if it chooses to adopt these units into SI. If the words "are" and "stere" appear clumsy, then I'm sure some new words can be created that fit the prefixes more and flow when spoken. One advantage to using are and stere to mean 1 m^2 and 1 m^3 is that there symbols will not be based on the square or cubed symbol and the difficulty in displaying the square and cube symbol ends. One other idea would be to spell are as simply ar and not confuse it with the verb are in english. What do you think of this idea? [USMA:51594] tonne--yeah, right Paul Trusten Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:35:12 -0700 To me, "metric ton" is cognate with "metric yard" for "meter." I have always voted for the megagram. Although they are recognized within the SI, "tonne" and, for that matter, "hectare," are throwbacks to pre-metric units. But, that's just me. Paul T.
