Metric essay

[C. Brooks]

If you've met an American that doesn't know that 212 deg is the bowling
point of water, it's probably because he was too stupid to get on the right
plane home! (Good riddance!)

The point of the article was not "How to make a ruler" it was to show the
original thought that went into forming the measuring system. The references
are human references that people can relate to rather easily regardless of
the size of their waist (I'm sure they know somebody who has a waist size
that's close.) On the other hand to hear that the meter is based on the
distance between the north pole and the equator stimulates no recognition
whatsoever. The alternative definition of a meter (which I had to look up as
I couldn't remember the exact numbers) "The length of the path traveled by
light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second." Is
no easier to relate too!

The basis for the units of measure in the metric system DON'T MAKE SENSE TO
AVERAGE PEOPLE. They cannot relate easily to the "Why" of the measurement.
Take the gentleman you met that didn't know the boiling point of water. Do
you think he could readily pace a 20 meter distance on the ground? Doubtful,
he's more likely to take 20 steps and go about 18 yards. He would try to
relate your request in metric units to his steps. And since it wasn't based
on his steps (Or anybodyelse)...  Well, I'm sure you get the point.

If we considered the metric system so superior to what we already have we
wouldn't have to be coerced into it's use by our own government! (Which is a
whole other can of worms we don't need to get into)

We don't have to come up with ANY arguments. What we have WORKS, and where
it doesn't we readily adopt something that does. This doesn't mean I NEED to
use metric units for everything.

Charles Brooks

-----Original Message-----
From: Fredrik Skog <c95fsg at cs.umu.se>
To: diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu <diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Saturday, June 05, 1999 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: Metric essay



And Fahrenheit....even the americans don't know how
it works. Alot of people I have talked to on the internet don't know the
exact Fahrenheit for boiling water...and I don't blame them...there are
not logic whatsoever in the scale.
As far as precision goes you are allowed to use like 20.5 degrees, is that
too hard?
And about the kilo. You americans use that all the time. In car adds it
says 200k miles and I can buy it for 30k$. So I guess you know what it
means.

You really have to come up with alot better arguments than this.
I do understand that it is very hard to change, and that it is expensive.
But don't start with this human body crap it is just ridiculous.

The metric system is by far the most logic and easy to use system.

Just my opinion

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Student at the Department of Computing Science Umeå University

Fredrik Skog     E-mail:   c95fsg at cs.umu.se
Taffelstråket 51        WWW:      http://www.acc.umu.se/~skog
903 53 Umeå                         Phone:    +46-(0)90-136365
            Mobile:   +46-(0)70-3041729