Pretend you walk into a lumber yard to buy a piece of wood, and the workers offer to cut a piece the length you need. The original piece of lumber is 12 feet, four and 5/16 ths of an inch long. You need a piece 8 feet, seven and 3/4 of an inch long. How long is the waste piece (that you still have to pay for)? Now you are transported to a metric universe. The lumber in the lumber yard is now 2.6 meters long, and you need a piece 1.83 meters long. How long is the waste piece now? Note these problems are not conversions in any sense, I just made up the numbers to illustrate a point. To subtract fractions using the inch-pound system one needs to do three or four steps, including borrowing twice, once from a whole inch and once from feet, turning it into 12 inches. Plus one needs a common denominator to do the problem. The inch problem takes much more time than just subtracting the decimal numbers. MArk Henschel
<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2Femail-signature%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Dwebmail&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111531884&sdata=C8wNliPHAtYpnus3lGxMD5lbTL0OcB2jsm8c%2FBFIgdM%3D&reserved=0> Virus-free. https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111531884&sdata=vBuUn4iQ1BEaL2dcDzwB1GkoJ6NsUjaN%2B3hGFw5JynY%3D&reserved=0 <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2Femail-signature%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Dwebmail&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111541881&sdata=625vYb%2F8UAPKIVvD%2FflWepHiE%2BBtXYle01CYWPL5UcE%3D&reserved=0> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 5:28 AM John Steele <[email protected]> wrote: > Seriously, I hope this is just a bad joke. Students should be learning two > things: > *To think > *Material that will be *useful* in the profession the course relates to. > > It is bad enough students need to convert between metric and the Customary > units still prevalent in some professions in the US. Teaching (and > examining them) on units too obscure to even be defined in Rowlett's Units > of Measure, moreless actually used in the US is torture, not teaching. As a > potential employer, students who have wasted class time learning nonsense > like this would be less useful to me than students who have learned more > useful material. > > I think this needs to be rethought. > > While being pedantic, I need to point out that the kilogram is a unit of > mass, not force (the concept of kilogram-force being entirely deprecated in > the SI) so kg/bc² can not be a unit of pressure. You need to multiply by > local gravity (as the building likely is designed to stay put) and use > N/bc². Also, we use Customary, derived from more obsolete British units, > not Imperial. We were independent when Imperial was conceived and adopted > none of its changes. Only units which did not change in 1824 are common. > > I have to ask. In Texas, is a cigarette the length of the tobacco product > or the boat? > > On Sunday, May 10, 2020, 4:46:41 PM EDT, John Nichols <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > It is very easy to demonstrate to a class of Freshman the stupidity of the > Imperial System used in the USA. > > > > 1. Teach then about a cigarette – a legal length in Texas > 2. Tell them about stones once in class and the use it in the exam > 3. Use barley corns > 4. A llath is a great UK unit – it is legal in the UK so I tell me > students it is acceptable here > 5. Do all board work in feet and change to inches in the exam -- > > > > Then set a math problem – > > > > A building weighs 4000000 stone, what is the ground pressure if the > building is 2/3 of a cigarette by 200 llaths in kg/ squared bc. > > > > Who said you cannot fix stupid. > > > > > > > > *John Nichols* > > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [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 > <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2Femail-signature%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Dwebmail&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111541881&sdata=625vYb%2F8UAPKIVvD%2FflWepHiE%2BBtXYle01CYWPL5UcE%3D&reserved=0> Virus-free. https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111541881&sdata=vOMnA4EfiSTvswrcCuyDvP%2FlqkofKJUEBnPNy4nTKxY%3D&reserved=0 <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avg.com%2Femail-signature%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Dwebmail&data=02%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C94d9938edf554032310a08d7f5a6589f%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C637247967111541881&sdata=625vYb%2F8UAPKIVvD%2FflWepHiE%2BBtXYle01CYWPL5UcE%3D&reserved=0> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
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