jru@etn-rad.UUCP (John Unekis) (08/05/87)
Summary:reposting from sci.space In article <2560002@hpclrk.HP.COM> rajiv@hpclrk.HP.COM writes: > > >One more observation. > I seem to believe that the reason US does not switch to SI is largely >economic. In US, most industry bluprints are based on FPS system. The >workers only know how to add "40 pounds of a ceratin catalyst". If today ...(more words)... >not know how much a liter is but it is ok because there is not *one* place >on the whole USA which will sell them gas by liters only. So everybody is ........ The reason that the U.S. doesn't switch to the metric system is because legislators are afraid of being voted out of office if they force their constituents to engage in any form of mental activity more strenuous than watching DALLAS. People in the U.S. handle weights and measures intuitively, but since the metric system is decimal in nature, they are afraid that they would be forced to learn to multiply and divide in their heads. What is needed is a common man's metric system, one which allows intuitive measurement without mathematics. therefore .... THE INTUITIVE METRIC SYSTEM --------------------------- Volume: Most Americans know of only two measures of volume, the gallon(because milk and gasoline come that way), and the cup(because they drink from it). Some gifted individuals can recognize a quart, either because they know how much is in a can of motor oil, or because they buy their milk in small containers that say one quart on them. Well folks , think of quarts, because the main unit of volume in the metric system is a LITER, which for all practical purposes is a quart. If you can't remember quarts, try 4 liters in a galllon, or 1/4 liter in a cup. Distance: To the average American, there are several types of distances. Distances from one place to another- these are measured in miles, which are meaninglessly huge, except that one mile takes one minute to drive on the freeway( at 60 miles per hour). In the metric system we use kilometers, which are just over half a mile. They take about 36 seconds to drive on the freeway( at 100 kilometers per hour). Since the kilometer is smaller than the mile, places will now be farther apart, but thats OK because you will get to drive faster(won't it be nice to see your speedometer say 100) . Distances to objects in view- these are measured in yards, one yard is one big step, 100 yards is a football field. In the metric system, there is very little change. The medium distance measure will be the METER. A meter is so close to a yard that you won't notice the change. Sizes of large objects - these are measured in feet, and maybe sometimes yards. A foot is the size of common objects like a notebook, or a magazine. Most people use feet primarily to measure their own height (or feet and inches). In the metric system , there are no feet, we have to use meters again. They are not so hard to get used to, though. President Reagen is two meters tall. The front door on your house is probably just about a meter wide. Sizes of small objects - these are measured in inches. Some larger objects that we wish were smaller are measured in inches too (like our waistlines). An inch is the distance between our fingers when we hold them one inch apart. In the metric system, we use centimeters. A centimeter is just under half an inch, or about the thickness of a regular pencil. This has some advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that you are over twice as tall as you were in inches(6 ft. = 72 inches = 180 cm) , but you are also over twice as fat (34 inch waist = 84 cm waist). Oh, well, you can't win em all. Weight: Most Americans have almost no intuitive feel for weight. Pick up the the coffee cup on your desk and hand it to someone. Ask them how much it weighs and you will get guesses ranging from 1 ounce to 10 pounds. The only weight which has any meaning to an American is their body weight. If you are a man , this is about 200 pounds, but since you haven't bothered to weigh yourself in 20 years , you still think its about 150. If you are a woman, you weigh yourself daily, and know that you weigh about 125 pounds, but you only admit to 110 of them. In the metric system, there is good news. We switch to kilograms, which are equal to over 2 pounds(2.2 actually). This means you will soon weigh less than half what you do now, without dieting. A man will come in at about 90 kg, and a woman at about 55 (admit to 50). One other miscelllaneous weight which a few Americans are concerned with is the ounce. This is hard to deal with because it is both a measure of volume and of weight ( amazingly enough, almost no one realizes that one ounce(liquid) of water weighs exactly one ounce(weight) by definition). The ounce is mentioned here because it the amount that a letter which takes one 22 cent stamp weighs. In the metric system we switch to grams. A gram is about the weight of a stick of Trident chewing gum. You can put about twenty eight of them in the mail for one 22 cent stamp. Temperature (thanks to Amos Shapir): To most Americans temperature is an entirely subjective measurement, the most important unit of which is too( as in 'its too hot' or 'its too cold'). The official scale is degrees farenheit, where 32 degrees F is the freezing point of water and 212 is the boiling point (as if anyone cared). Farenheit is based on an historical accident and is calibrated from the accidental top and bottom of a thermometer made by some guy hundreds of years ago. This thermometer has since been copied by every dime store in the universe and is sold for about 5 cents, making Farenheit easily accessible to everyone. In the metric system, we use degrees centigrade. The centigrade scale was deliberately based on an easily obtained scale, the freezing point (0 degrees) and boiling point (100 degrees) of water. Since these things vary with both altitude and the purity of the water, they are almost impossible to get right without precise scietific lab equipment and thus have been embraced by the scientific community. In order to make centigrade useful to the common folks, a conversion chart is included that converts from Farenheit to Centigrade to the Too scale. Farenheit Centigrade Too --------- --------- ---- 212 100 Too hot to drink 100 38 Too hot to go outside, stay in where its air conditioned 72 23 Perfect 50 10 Too chilly to go out without a sweater 32 0 To cold to go out without a coat 0 (and below) -18 Too damn cold for almost anything NOW YOU KNOW THE INTUITIVE METRIC SYSTEM Now when somebody tells you that a spaceship has 6 million kilograms of thrust you can file that fact in the special place in your brain ( just like UNIX /dev/null ) which is reserved for incomprehensibly large figures like the distance to the sun, and the weight of the moon. The nice thing about international standardization is that we may not understand the world around us any better, but at least we can all miscomprehend it in the same units. ----------------------------------------------------------------- the opinions above were my own when I thought of them, by tomorrow they may belong to someone else. ihnp4!wlbr!etn-rad!jru
bage@utah-cs.UUCP (Goran Bage) (08/06/87)
In article <238@etn-rad.UUCP> jru@etn-rad.UUCP (0000-John Unekis) writes: > > > In the metric system, we use degrees centigrade. The centigrade scale I think the metric temperature degrees are named Celsius, not centigrades, in recognition of Anders Celsius who invented the 100 degree, freezing to boiling point scale. --Goran Bage bage@cs.utah.edu
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (08/06/87)
For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine
freezes.
--
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnetjal@oliveb.UUCP (Tony Landells) (08/07/87)
In article <4808@utah-cs.UUCP>, bage@utah-cs.UUCP (Goran Bage) writes: > In article <238@etn-rad.UUCP> jru@etn-rad.UUCP (0000-John Unekis) writes: > > In the metric system, we use degrees centigrade. The centigrade scale > I think the metric temperature degrees are named Celsius, not centigrades, It depends where you are - in Australia they use Celsius, in Italy it's centigrade, but I'm not sure of the exact extent of use of either name. They both represent exactly the same scale, and they both use a C to indicate use of that scale, so it doesn't really matter much :-) -- I don't have a .signature, but then I never did get the hangboas ldoef (* */
kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) (08/07/87)
In article <4808@utah-cs.UUCP> bage@utah-cs.UUCP (Goran Bage) writes: :In article <238@etn-rad.UUCP> jru@etn-rad.UUCP (0000-John Unekis) writes: :: In the metric system, we use degrees centigrade. The centigrade scale :I think the metric temperature degrees are named Celsius, not centigrades, :in recognition of Anders Celsius who invented the 100 degree, freezing :to boiling point scale. Both right and wrong - The system is called the Celcius as opposed to Fahrenheit or Reamur. The correct definitions are: centigrade a. Having a hundred degrees; esp. = CELSIUS [F,f.L centum (hundred) + gradus (step)] celsius a. Pertaining to the ~ scale of temperature, on which water freezes at 0 degree and boils at 100 degree under normal conditions (1 Atm. pressure). Right to say: "The Metric system uses the centigrade system for measuring temperatures." Right to say: "X boils at 125 degrees centigrade" Right to say: "Gee, it's hot today - at least 25 degrees." Kim Chr. Madsen.
kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) (08/07/87)
In article <3657@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: >For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine >freezes. 0 degrees C - Water freezes (at 1. Atm. pressure) 0 degrees K - Everything Freezes (Absolute Zero) As said Just for the record Kim Chr. Madsen.
hammond@faline.bellcore.com (Rich A. Hammond) (08/07/87)
In article <2560002@hpclrk.HP.COM> rajiv@hpclrk.HP.COM writes: ... >not know how much a liter is but it is ok because there is not *one* place >on the whole USA which will sell them gas by liters only. So everybody is NOT TRUE - Here on the East Coast (Philadelphia and New Jersey, at least) Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) switched to liters when the gas prices zoomed up. All the other companies put in new pumps with F5.1 format (3digits.1digit) for cents per gallon. ARCO simply changed to cents per liter, and changed the gears inside the pump. This allows up to 99.9 cents/liter or roughly $3.78 a gallon while still using the old F4.1 format. HOWEVER, they continued to advertise their price in $/gallon. I checked once when I bought gas, their conversion was off (in their favor) by a couple cents a gallon, so that although they appeared to be less expensive than the other stations, they cost the same. It's a pity that the other oil companies didn't make the same switch. Rich Hammond hammond@bellcore.com or ...!bellcore!hammond
ddyment@water.UUCP (08/07/87)
Another useful technique for metric users... Just as the freeway driver
using English units can trivially convert from distance to driving time
(500 miles = 500 minutes (= 8 hours, 20 minutes)), so can the metric driver
(833 km. = 8.33 hours (= 8 hours, 20 minutes)). Just move the decimal point
two places to the left to change kilometers to typical freeway driving hours.
--
Doug Dyment, Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
UUCP: {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,watmath,..}!water!ddyment
INTERNET: ddyment@er.waterloo.edu office: 519/888-4451
EAN: ddyment@er.waterloo.cdn home: 519/888-7895devine@vianet.UUCP (Bob Devine) (08/08/87)
In article <3657@ecsvax.UUCP>, dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: > For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine > freezes. It's not that exact. "Water" can now be made to not freeze until well below zero (I appreciate that in winter). Apparently Fahrenheit came up with his scale of temperature based on what *he* could achieve and measure. To show the amount of error consider that he tried to have 100 be normal human body temperature. 98.6 anyone? Bob Devine
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (08/08/87)
I lived in Canadia between '76 and '79 when it was all metric. You'd
be surprised how easy it is to adapt to the metric system. It really is
nice.
BUT! Kilopascals ? Gimme a break. 32 psi I can handle, but 450 Kilopascals or
.450 or whatever. Uh-uh.
P.S. You HAVE noticed that ALL liquor bottles are metric now havnt you ?
Even the U.S.A is not a big enough special case to exempt.
P.P.S. Besides that, I have seen MPH/KPH signs around So Cal.
P.P.P.S Of course if you read this group you probably already work in metric...
--
Richard Sexton
INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
UUCP: {akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard
"It's too dark to put the key in my ignition..."werner@aecom.YU.EDU (Craig Werner) (08/09/87)
In article <3657@ecsvax.UUCP>, dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: > For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine > freezes. And another question of trivia: where 100 degrees originate? Actually, I'll forestall the mail, and give the answer now. While 0 degrees F was obtained by measuring the melting temperature of a saturated salt solution, Gabriel Fahrenheit obtained 100 Fahrenheit by measuring his body temperature. He was the inventor of the thermometer, and the first to calibrate one. History, as far as I know, does not indicate why Fahrenheit's temperature was 1.4F higher than average. It could have been genetic, or he may have suffered from a chronic infection such as tuberculosis resulting in a constant low grade fever. And that is why we all (or most of us anyway), have a temperature of 98.6 instead of 100. -- Craig Werner (future MD/PhD, 3 years down, 4 to go) werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517) "I wouldn't have invited me either."
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (08/09/87)
In article <1154@gryphon.CTS.COM>, richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > I lived in Canadia between '76 and '79 when it was all metric. You'd > be surprised how easy it is to adapt to the metric system. It really is > nice. > > BUT! Kilopascals ? Gimme a break. 32 psi I can handle, but 450 Kilopascals or > .450 or whatever. Uh-uh. I too was surprised how the Pascal, kPA and MPa has replaced the traditional metric units for pressure - such as dyne/cm2 and kg/cm2 - that I learned in college and worked with for a number of years. However, it appears that the Pascal and related units are here to stay. As an interesting example, my organization developed some computer controlled test instrumentation for a division of General Motors several years ago, and GM had developed a number of standards and specifications to which all vendors had to comply; these included the following: 1. All calculations, algorithms and internal tables are to be done in metric. Period. 2. Operator-entered input must be English or metric, based upon selection of operator. 3. Output must be available both as English and metric, with the selection to be by operator. 4. The kPa was the official GM metric unit for pressure, and no one wanted to hear about kg/cm2 or dyne/cm2. According to the above GM guidelines, data entered in English was converted to metric units, calculated, reconverted to English, and then displayed. While I have a "feeling" for kg/cm2, I have grown used to kPA. As an example, it is easy to remember than normal atmospheric pressure is slightly less than 100 kPa. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
gadfly@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Gadfly) (08/10/87)
-- > > For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine > > freezes. > > ..Apparently Fahrenheit came up with his scale of temperature > based on what *he* could achieve and measure... > > Bob Devine I thought Fahrenheit based his scale on what he measured (presumably over some years) to be the coldest (0) and hottest (100) ambient temperatures to occur wherever it was in Germany he came from. It is thus a better scale for generic weather description than Celsius. *** *** J'EN AI RAS-LE-BOL ***** ***** ****** ****** 10 Aug 87 [23 Thermidor An CXCV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-8042 ** ** ** ** ihnp4!ihlpa!gadfly *** ***
lambert@cwi.nl (Lambert Meertens) (08/11/87)
Fahrenheit was feverishly trying to calibrate his thermometer. -- Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl
onno@dutesta.UUCP (Onno M. Kuijken) (08/11/87)
In article <452@ambush.UUCP> kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) writes > In article <3657@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: > >For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine > >freezes. > 0 degrees C - Water freezes (at 1. Atm. pressure) > 0 degrees K - Everything Freezes (Absolute Zero) ^^^^^^^ Shouldn't that just have to be 0 K ? Besides, has anyone ever realised the km/h is no proper SI-unit and that speed should be measured in m/s ? (Although this means that a speedometer at the US speed limit reads only 25 instead of 55 (mph) or even 90 (km/h)) > As said Just for the record
oconnor@sunray.steinmetz (Dennis Oconnor) (08/11/87)
I read somewhere ( uh oh, another memory ... without a reference ! )
That Dr. Fahrenheit was a Veternarian, and selected as 100 degrees
the temperature of a healthy cow! [ No 8-) ] 0 degrees he selected
as being the "coldest it ever got" where he lived ( Europe, somewhere).
--
Dennis O'Connor oconnor@sungoddess.steinmetz.UUCP ??
ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
"Everything { used_to_have | has | will_have } a niche, even my opinions."court@garfield.UUCP (08/11/87)
In article <452@ambush.UUCP> kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) writes: >0 degrees C - Water freezes (at 1. Atm. pressure) >0 degrees K - Everything Freezes (Absolute Zero) For the record, liquid helium remains liquid at 0 K, unless at least 2.5 MPa of pressure is applied; or, strictly speaking, since 0 K is not attainable, the solid-liquid phase equilibrium line for He-4 is almost flat, and with P approx. equal to 2.5 MPa, from approx. 1 K down to the lowest temperatures measured. For He-3, the slope of the phase equilibrium line is actually negative below 0.2 K. John Lewis
cpf@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Courtenay Footman) (08/12/87)
In article <452@ambush.UUCP> kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) writes: >In article <3657@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: >>For the record, 0 degrees F is the temperature at which saturated brine >>freezes. >0 degrees C - Water freezes (at 1. Atm. pressure) >0 degrees K - Everything Freezes (Absolute Zero) At 0K, and ordinary pressures, helium is a liquid, and spin polarized hydrogen is a gas. I will not even start to discuss what state a degenerate system of electrons is in at 0 K. The mad pedant: -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Courtenay Footman ARPA: cpf@lnssun9.tn.cornell.edu Lab. of Nuclear Studies Usenet: Not currently available. Cornell University Bitnet: cpf@CRNLNUC.BITNET
dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (08/12/87)
In article <452@ambush.UUCP> kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) writes: >0 degrees K - Everything Freezes (Absolute Zero) A common error in terminlogy. "0 degrees K" is incorrect. "0 K" or "0 kelvin" is correct. Also occasionally acceptable is "0 degrees absolute". While the Celsius and Farenheit scales use arbitrarily-chosen zero points, the kelvin *does* have a natural zero because it is measuring something proportional to kinetic energy. Hence adding "degrees" is superfluous--we are measuring not just differences, but something absolute. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo}!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (08/14/87)
In article <4958@ihlpa.ATT.COM> gadfly@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Gadfly) writes: >I thought Fahrenheit based his scale on what he measured (presumably over >some years) to be the coldest (0) and hottest (100) ambient temperatures >to occur wherever it was in Germany he came from. It is thus a better scale >for generic weather description than Celsius. My high school text books had the same story, but Robert Fahrenheit was English. Anybody know the real story? -- (C) Copyright 1987 Laura Creighton - you may redistribute only if your recipients may. Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura
de@moscom.UUCP (08/14/87)
In article <1154@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >I lived in Canadia between '76 and '79 when it was all metric. You'd >be surprised how easy it is to adapt to the metric system. It really is >nice. > >BUT! Kilopascals ? Gimme a break. 32 psi I can handle, but 450 Kilopascals or >.450 or whatever. Uh-uh. On a recent trip to Israel I wanted to put some air in the tires of our rented car. I turned to my sister, who had lived there for eight years, and asked her what the units of pressure were, and how many did one put into a tire. She smiled and said that she put in 28 pounds. When I looked at the airpump I discovered that it was an old American one. Seems that it is cheaper to buy old psi pumps than to buy new kilopascal pumps. -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/
lambert@mcvax.UUCP (08/15/87)
) My high school text books had the same story, but Robert Fahrenheit was ) English. Anybody know the real story? Who is Robert Fahrenheit? The great-grandnephew of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and the inventor of the potrzebie temperature scale? D.G. Fahrenheit was born in Danzig in 1686, moved to Amsterdam in 1717, where he invented the mercury thermometer (until then he had used an alcohol thermometer, invented by del Cimiento in 1660) and died in The Hague in 1736 according to one source I have, in Danzig according to another source, whereas all other sources currently available to me leave the place of demise open. (They all agree he died:-) The zero point in his original system was *both* the temperature attained by a mixture of snow and sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) *and* the lowest temperature observed in Danzig in the winter of 1709. He was intelligent enough to realize that the latter was not a conveniently usable calibration point. In his first revision of the system, published in 1717, Fahrenheit (D.G.) defined the upper calibration point of bodily temperature as 96 degrees. In a second revision, published in 1724, he made the significant step of using the freezing and boiling temperatures of water as calibration points (32 and 212 degrees). ) (C) Copyright 1987 Laura Creighton - you may redistribute only if your ) recipients may. Oh gosh, I really don't know how to check what the thousands (?) of recipients of this article may or may not. -- Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl
dcpik@ednor.UUCP (David Pikcilingis) (08/16/87)
> >My high school text books had the same story, but Robert Fahrenheit was >English. Anybody know the real story? >-- Robert Fahrenheit may well have been English but Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) was German. He did work in both Holland and England where he developed and manufactured meteorological instruments. The temp- erature scale with his name was published in 1724.
phil@amdcad.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) (08/21/87)
This article was very funny but a bigger reason for not changing
is that all your screws, nuts, bolts, and tools change. Likewise
for the common 2X4 stud or a 4X8 piece of plywood. Ugh!
--
I speak for myself, not the company.
Phil Ngai, {ucbvax,decwrl,allegra}!amdcad!phil or amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.comjnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) (08/24/87)
In article <17983@amdcad.AMD.COM>, phil@amdcad.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) writes: > > This article was very funny but a bigger reason for not changing > is that all your screws, nuts, bolts, and tools change. Likewise > for the common 2X4 stud or a 4X8 piece of plywood. Ugh! So what - they are already a mess. A 2x4 is 1.5x3.5 while a 4x8 piece of plywood is indeed 4'x8'. -- These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer. John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, Data Management Group, San Diego ...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp jnp@calmasd.GE.COM