I agree, charts can be very good. No math involved. Al Lawrence
________________________________ From: USMA <[email protected]> on behalf of Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 3:50 PM To: 'Brian White' <[email protected]>; 'Peter Goodyear' <[email protected]> Cc: 'USMA List' <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA 1333] Re: U.S. metrication is eminently doable! The biggest hindrance to a metric changeover is to give the imperial/customary equivalent for every measure. By all means, have some standard conversion charts – for example for temperature show the Fahrenheit equivalents of 40°C, 30°C, 20°C, 10°C, 0°C and -10°C. Thus, if somebody wanted to know the Fahrenheit equivalent of say of 25°C, they would have to look at the chart and see that it would be midway between 68°F and 84°F. The important thing is that the Celsius figure would pass through their mind. South Africa converted to km/h shortly after I started driving. The fuel crisis came a year later and there were draconian speed limits. I had an old jalopy with an mph speedo, but I very quickly learned all the km/h conversions – it would have been very expensive not to do so. Here, in the UK, thanks to “social distancing” and the coronavirus everybody is rapidly learning what “two metres” is. From: USMA [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian White Sent: 23 March 2020 13:14 To: Peter Goodyear Cc: USMA List Subject: [USMA 1331] Re: U.S. metrication is eminently doable! Yep. The Associated Press needs to change that ONE little thing and it would go a long way. They seem to bend over backwards to change anything metric to US Customary. Where if they'd just leave it metric or even prefer metric (and lose the stupid football field reference) we'd make great progress. On Mar 23, 2020, at 03:38, Peter Goodyear <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: It helps if the public is immersed in a metric environment as much as possible so that there is no need for conversions. Putting metric measurements on food packaging was not found to be a major source of information for the Australian public. People just pick up a can of stew or packet of pasta that looks “big enough”. What happened here was that the media reported news and sports in metric measures. For example, the Melbourne Cup was run over 3200 metres instead of two miles (16 furlongs/two miles). I remember a sports commentator being criticised for describing “a two-thirds of a metre putt” when covering a golf match. Hobbyist magazines wrote articles in metric terms. Wide-circulation magazines such as Readers Digest and Women’s Day wrote articles, news and recipes in metric measures. The weather was reported in Celsius temperatures, millimetres of rain and wind speeds in km/h. To do this you will need to get the mainstream media actively supporting metrication. Good luck with that! Best wishes, Peter, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> On 23 Mar 2020, at 14:56, Milos Paripovic <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: It is doable but common person has to be considered. Take a few adults with only a high-school (or even elementary school) from any random Metric-only country and make a survey which units they are using and which prefixes. For example, I spent first 30 years of my life in several metric-only countries and I have almost never heard anyone using deci-, deca-, hecto-, etc, and many don't know what these are. 2 years after high-school most people will forget what is micro and mega, not to mention the rest. From reading this mailing list and reddit/r/Metric I see that many go into too much detail, for example forcing usage of mm instead of cm, but a common person growing up in metric country, millimeter is less convenient, and by the same logic, also less convenient for anyone trying to convert. Then, there are the ones that try to make people do everything right from the start, for example, imposing rules on how the prefixes should be used to avoid decimal points, and that just complicate things unnecessarily. That makes sense only with certain professions after everyone has fully adopted basic units and is able to think without converting. Most common people will error +-50% or more when estimating 10 cm, 1 kilogram, 1 kilometer, and any other. We might as well say yard is meter, quart is a liter, as for a common person without a measuring tape even that is precise enough, but is much simpler. There is no point in considering engineers, scientists and other highly educated people that are dealing with measurements every day for the initial efforts, and until we have a person at deli understanding metric and being able to sell you half a kilogram of meat, there will be no change. Milos On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 5:24 PM Paul Trusten <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I personally went Celsius in 2003. True, America did not,but my cell phone and my car always talk to me in Celsius only. The result is that I can talk to anyone in Celsius only. During my 2013 visit to England, I noticed that my English friend set the thermostat in his car to 17 on a chilly day. I usually set mine to 21. The temperature in my apartment is 20 to 21. I have dropped the “C” from my discourse. Metrication SHALL work! I totally agree with Martin. We made the change with carbonated beverages (1 L, 2 L, 3 L). We CAN do it with milk. We can do it with anything! > On Mar 22, 2020, at 12:23, "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Al Lawrence's point is well taken in my opinion: arithemetical conversions > just turn people off. The best way to go metric is just to use it in daily > life - no conversions. Set your digital thermometer to degrees Celsius; set > your digital scale to kilograms - it's simple. Pretty soon you'll have to > think hard to interpret Fahrenheit and pounds! > > Kaimbridge's point is valid to a certain extent, e.g., with quarts and > liters, but nobody uses cmHg, as far as I know. > > Martin Morrison > > ============ >> On Sun, 22 Mar 2020, Al Lawrence wrote: >> >> Most people hate math and will avoid it at all costs. Most people don't >> even bother trying to figure out if buying two quarts of ice cream is >> cheaper than buying a half gallon, and many couldn't do it if they tried. >> They buy by visual size and assume the bigger size is cheaper per unit. >> They buy two liter bottles of soda, half liter bottles of water and other >> metric packaging without hesitation, simply by visually looking at the size >> without even looking at the net contents. ANY and ALL conversion tables >> (that look like math) or any other attempts to educate them, will turn >> people off and are counterproductive. >> Al Lawrence > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
_______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
