Metric essay

[Greg Hermann]

>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>
>I would agree I just wont state it quite so strongly.
>I have some experience in this matter. I grew up in Canada and was a teenager
>when Canada went to the metric system (si) the first year was painful, but was
>very easy to work with in day to day life and at work after learning the
>system.
>And is not hard to relate things to example 1liter of water weighs about 1 kg
>and it occupies an area 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm.
>I now live in the USA and am quite surprised by the difficulty people have with
>the system. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks!
>>From what I know of recent US history on this subject the US was going to go
>metric until the government realized the cost of changing many millions of road
>signs.

I have no problem with the metric system as originally conceived by
Napoleon. It is the constant tinkering and new units and "systems of units"
which are produced by a flock of professors and French (ISO) bureaucrats
that I mind.

I have dealt with at least four utterly different versions of the "metric
system" since high school. Remember "mks" and cgs" ??? A system of units
should be a constant--mostly in the interests of quality control and clear,
uncluttered technical thinking. I prefer the American-English system
because it has been very constant for quite some time.

The academics and bureaucrats have their plaything, I have something that
works, and which is allowed to stay  the same because the pedantic
tinkerers leave it alone in their disdain.

No problem learning to relate to the units--been there, done that! Just see
no good reason to have to shovel through a fresh pile of manure, as
generated by a herd of overeducated idiots, every few years!

Set off a tactical nuke under ISO, and the metric system might turn into a
pretty decent system of weights and measures! But--I STILL think that a
twelve based system of units, including numbers, would be better, and FAR
more efficient!

Greg
>
>Bill Edgeworth