I tutor physics at to English "A" Level students (16-18 years old). I give
each of my students a copy of "Martin's exam tips":
1. Read the question
2. If in doubt, convert to SI
3. Read the question
4. Try equating energies
5. Try equating forces
6. Read the question
The student's mothers (who are usually paying for the course) understand 1, 3
and 6.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Luther
Sent: 22 June 2013 21:08
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:52974] Re: comms: cultural diversity/distinctiveness
@Eric: You hit on this in your post, but I'll say it simply:
Standardization leads to greater communication, trust, and compatibility
between products. All this leads to greater exposure to other cultures, which
means richer diversity.
If I may go on a slight tangent: When I talk to people about SI, they usually
say that the metric system makes a lot more sense, but then they keep on using
the old measurement units. We need a way to show people that SI can make their
personal lives much easier and to teach them how to integrate the metric system
into their daily lives. Here are a few rules I try to follow:
1. When measuring something yourself, always use metric.
2. Never do any math with non-metric units without first converting them to
metric values.
3. Never record any non-metric measurements. Always convert them to metric
first.
4. When buying, always prefer products priced and/or labeled in metric.
I know the USMA doesn't like the idea of doing conversions, but it seems to
work well for me, and it's not a problem as long as I have a unit converter
handy.
Here are links to unit converters:
GNU units: https://www.gnu.org/software/units/
For Android:
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=units&fdid=info.staticfree.android.units
(I'm a free software geek, so I must recommend GNU and F-Droid over Windows and
Google Play.)
Luther
