The federal government calls it "the metric system". A Federal Register
document and others state that by that is meant "the international
system of units".
KISS.
Jim
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stoney Point Mountain Road
Doyle TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
On 2014-09-01 18:28, [email protected] wrote:
I think that we all here know that when we say "Metric System" we mean
SI, not cgs. If we started talking about "SI," we'd get befuddled looks
from almost everybody. Curiously, we call that system "SI Metric"
rather than "International System," though I like that term, but it too
would also not be recognizable to the vast majority of people. I think,
for practical reasons, we're stuck with "metric" in the standard
vocabulary. --MM
============
On Mon, 1 Sep 2014, [email protected] wrote:
Martin Morrison. I agree with what you say. But I find it a bit
strange that most people in this
group still call it the Metric System, when we really should be using
the current name. The eleventh
CGPM (Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures = General Conference on
Weights and Measures) in 1960
faced the question of what to call this new reorganization and
extension of measures. The name
Metric System had referred to the units for length and mass. What the
CGPM had created was much more
comprehensive, and after some discussion, this new system was called
the International System of
units or SI after its French initials. For the first time, the world
had not merely universal units,
but a universal system of units. The Metric System became
the International System the same year I
was born, 1960, and after 54 years, you still refer to SI by its old
name. It is beyond me! Does
anyone want to justify using the old name?
