Tom Biasi wrote on 9/1/2017 10:14 AM:
On 9/1/2017 3:57 AM, rickman wrote:
Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 11:13 PM:
Well you and I remember differently. I was involved in the teaching of the
metric system to the people of the USA. There was great resistance and money
for the project soon got thin. When I studied engineering in the 70's we
used the metric system exclusively. We didn't call it SI, it was just the
way the scientific community did it.
What teaching were you involved in? I assume it was companies asking you
to educate employees? That is not related to the government. It also has
nothing to do with the "resistance" from the average person. No one was
overly enthusiastic about it since it was a big change, but people were
willing to go with the flow. Mostly they just didn't understand it as
there had been only notification that it would happen and the education
was only in the schools. I believe it was industry that resisted the
change much to our detriment over the decades.
I don't know what you mean about metric not being "SI". I didn't know
diddly about metric until I was in college (before the conversion program
started) and was taught the SI system. I believe prior to SI there was a
metric system that had a few units that were different from today's SI by
some powers of 10. CGS and dynes come to mind.
I gave you my experience and you disagree. That's it.
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience also.
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system over
a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to coordinate
and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States".
Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United States Metric Board
(USMB) was established for planning, coordination, and public education. The
public education component led to public awareness of the metric system, but
the public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."
You didn't answer the question about what teaching you did exactly. I don't
know what "That's it" means.
I will rephrase my statement. The resistance to metric was less than the
resistance we have to our current President. No one marched in the streets.
No one filed actions with the Supreme Court. Yeah, people were people and
we had some editorials and a few indicated they had no reason to change,
such as the machine shop I worked with at the time. But they eventually
acquired metric capability anyway.
The "apathy" was the largest component of the response to changing to the
metric system by far. If the government had stayed the course we would have
been converted long ago and all the pain would be behind us.
I wonder why the wikipedia quote doesn't mention the fact that we did the
conversion in cooperation with Canada? Because wikipedia sucks and often is
not 100% accurate. Never use them for any disputed point without looking at
the references.
From the Popular Science web site, "A Gallup poll at the time showed that
45 percent of Americans opposed the switch." That means less than half!
Here is a better reference... from NIST.
https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/f...tric/1136a.pdf
While the Congressional study recommended a coordinated conversion over a
ten year period, Congress made the actual conversion voluntary. Consistent
with the "apathy" part of your statement above, the efforts of the Metric
Board were much ignored and the board was dissolved.
Today metric is a much larger part of our lives and I believe a conversion
would not be resisted and in fact, welcomed by a much larger percentage of
the population. Anyone who works on cars has both types of tools.
Measuring sticks and tapes often are marked in both systems. Goods on store
shelves are already marked in both systems. We are presently primed for the
conversion.
There is some irony in a personal anecdote. I was a contractor with the
Federal government and had to fill out forms justifying buying something
that wasn't measured in metric. The crusty old government employee who
oversaw purchasing didn't want to risk his pension so *everything* we bought
had to have this document. I ordered a board that *was* metric so I didn't
fill in the form and my
PR was rejected. When I explained to him the board
was metric he didn't believe you could buy anything in the US that *was*
metric!!! This was in the 90's.
--
Rick C
Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998