More Metric Stuff

I’ve gotten a lot of emails about my articles about the necessity of the U.S. converting to metric soon (President Obama, Give Us a Yard and We’ll Take a Meter; Some Practical Consequences of Going Metric). Let me address a few of them.

We Don’t Need Metric

I didn’t get too many of these, but one writer was very strident in the view that things are just fine as they are. In fact, ey[[daggerto]] made it very clear that ey wasn’t about to buy all new tools because inches were how it is supposed to be (fortunately ey stopped short of saying it was God’s will… but only just short).

Needless to say, being that I had to by a set of metric wrenches and sockets last week so I could work on my brother’s car, I’m not all that persuaded by his argument. The fact is that even if you only buy American, you are increasingly likely to have to deal with situations that require metric tools—this being a side-effect of companies wanting to sell globally but not wanting to have two production lines.

Economics is a big part of the more forceful comments. Construction folk, plumbers, and the like don’t like the idea of having to trash their cache of tools. They seemed to miss my point that because of extant construction that will last many decades, their old tools will still be much-used. They will need to add on to what they have in regards to some of their tools, but mostly with the fasteners. As with the current economic mess, fear is making the problem much larger than it really is.

I’m still shocked how many thought that using fractions was easier than using decimals. Seriously? I’m far from being mathematically challenged, but even I will concede that the variety of fractions we use are much more difficult than using decimals. This might not be the case if we used a standard denominator, say the 32nd, but we don’t. We simplify.

Let’s try an example.  If I need three pieces of 2 x 4 (which is 1-1/2″ by 3-1/2″), one 2-1/4″, another 3-5/8″ and the third at 2′ 6-7/8″ and the saw blade I use makes a cut 7/16″ wide, what is the shortest piece of wood that I’d need? You see the problem. You have to convert the fractions to a common denominator, you have to convert the feet in one measurement to inches, then you do the math (which I leave as an exercise for the reader). If, on the other hand, we needed lengths of 57 mm, 92 mm, and 784 mm with the saw blade having a thickness of 11 mm, what do you end up with?

Honestly…day in and day out, which method would you rather use?

Pretty much all of the rest of the letters on this topic were some combination of jingoism and inertia. Basically, some people just plain don’t want change. They just don’t. (My mom is one of these—she hates change, except when it does something she wants. Even then, there’s grumbling.) Well…there’s not much I can say to that except that change is the natural order of things. Look around you: trees grow, you age, friends and family die, tools are now made of plastic and metal instead of rock and bone. Change happens. If you can adapt, you have a better chance of thriving than those who can only stay the course and eventually go extinct. That isn’t technology…that’s nature.

Equivalents

Following the second blog, I got some commentaries about the units I used and the short-cut conversions.

First off, I will confess that I didn’t realize that the small length measure most commonly used is the millimeter. After poking around a lot of international sites, I see that it is indeed the case. I sort of figured that centimeters would be easier, but I guess people like dealing with whole numbers instead of decimals. Fine, whatever. With metric, it’s easy to convert so it’s no big deal going from 3.2 cm to 32 mm. ‘course, human heights are often seen as whole centimeters or decimal meters. I guess that’s just a hobgoblin we’ll have to get used to.

Some of the comments I got were simply the result of cultural differences. The choices I made for shortcuts took into account the things that will be easily applicable to Americans while also not overwhelming them with too many options. The idea of metrication is to make it relatively easy to do conversions when necessary, but to mostly just relax and realize that you don’t actually know the quantity of something unless you measure it anyway.

In regards to cooking, I was taken to task about the conversions by a couple of people. I have to say that while I understood their complaint, the fact is that American cookbooks and recipes are going to have to be converted into their metric equivalents. For the most part, the conversions don’t have to be exact (i.e. some rounding of the numbers is allowed), but cooks will need to know what the heck they are doing.

One person misinterpreted my short-cut conversion of a foot to 30 cm. From what I gathered, ey seemed to think that I was referring to a human foot and not a 12-inch foot. Ey was also very pointed on using a pace as a close equivalent of a meter. Thing is, people’s strides vary a lot.

As for how easy it is to drop one system of measures for another, a friend of mine from Canada who “drives [eir] car 100km/hr for 60 miles, buys 454 grams of beef to make a pound of chili, and who thinks it’s way too hot outside when it’s above 30C, but doesn’t reall [sic] worry about [eir] kid’s fever until it’s above 101F.”

Timing

Except for the opponents of metrication who want the conversion to go as slowly as… no, that’s not fair; they want it to go away… the overwhelming advice I got from people in places that did the conversion is that it needs to go fast. As fast as possible. Ideally in two years or less.

They gave many examples about how prolonged transitions bogged down and resulted in a confusing amalgam of measurement systems because of various interest groups holding political sway. They countered with examples of countries that converted swiftly, who experienced the same short-term pain, but reaped greater economic benefit when the conversion was complete. Taking from the examples I was given, it was clear that faster, in this case, was better.

The fly in the ointment comes from the size of the United States. We have a large population, a large amount of area, and a proportionally large number of industries. If you think your nation had a hard time, try scaling it up a bit. This is why I focused on road signs as being the pacing factor. Most everything else (except large-scale industries that will either have to do simple mathematical conversions or amortize their equipment changes over many years) is a short-term fix. Many industries only have to change their units from avoirdupois to metric on packaging, labels, and other easily changed things. Some will have a one-time tool purchase. It’s the signs that take time.

The number of highways and roads that network the United States is staggering. There are speed signs at frequent intervals, and the highways are populated with distance markers, city distance signs, exit distance signs, and more. These will need to be manufactured and ready for installation before the end of the conversion will be in sight. For this to work, all states will have to start installation at the same time. Doing it piecemeal will only prolong the process and raise the spectre of driving errors leading to accidents (and lost revenue). Once 90% of the signs are installed, the national conversion in most other industries should be completed.

Amazingly, no one offered advice on the postage thing. Maybe since letter writing has gone out of vogue this isn’t much of an issue anymore.

Summing Up

I do have to say that the opponents of metrication are very firm in their stand. Obviously I think their stand is out of date, but their voices are very loud (as are many cable and radio shouting-heads). I do understand where they are coming from. In the late 70s, even though I was using metric in my science classes, I wasn’t a big fan of the change, either. It’s hard to get over the fear that with one stroke of a government pen you can change from being competent to being an idiot. It’s truly an unfounded fear, but one that many in our mathematically-challenged country hold.

Oh, and just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s socialist or communist or any other -ist you think is an insult. Buzzwords are not arguments (regardless of how the shouting heads use them).

All I can really say is that any attempt to teach them the new system has to begin with the idea that most people don’t really know how big, long, or heavy things are now. We need to be very understanding and somewhat patient. It’s not going to be easy at first, but I’m unwilling to believe that Americans are so stupid that they can’t learn something inherently easier that everyone else uses. I believe that my countrymen can rise to this small challenge and show how it can be done. Besides, think of all the jobs it will create in the short term and all of the saved expense we’ll have when selling beyond our borders in the long-term.