Phat Unplugged

Here's an example of my approach having led to changing my mind.I prefer working in the metric system than in the "English" system. One of my favorite pertinent scenes in Jerry Seinfeld's interview series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, was his initial phone conversation with Christoph Waltz who was shopping in a Santa Monica hardware store for a measuring tape:

quote:

---

Waltz: I am trying to find something in centimeters.
Seinfeld: Why?
Waltz: Why? Because inches don't make sense.

---

My father was a master carpenter and a general contractor and I worked for him for eight years in high school and college (every day I wasn't in class I was on the job site, so my first big adjustment to life in the military was having weekends free). Being able to read 16ths and 32nds of an inch on a steel tape on sight requires constant daily practice, which my work schedule did not provide me, so every time I had to figure it out. That meant that I had to repeatedly calculate fractions and do fraction arithmetic in my head, then forget what I had learned until the next time I had to do the same weeks or even months later. IOW, I never learned, but had to always do it the hard way.Then I worked construction for one summer in West Germany. The first day on the job I was handed a Meterstock and told to get a board of a specific width. I could read that measurement immediately. Verily, centimeters do indeed make more sense than inches do.University physics class used metric which made a lot of sense; we did cover "English" units briefly, but that felt too messy to work with (eg, mass having to be measured in slugs since the pound is a unit of force, so many hybrid units, etc).Half a century ago I learned the metric equivalences (1 cubic centimeter == 1 milliliter and 1 ml water masses at one gram), but until a year ago I didn't know that one fluid ounce of water weighs about one ounce avoirdupois.I also do not understand fluid ounces which only come up when ordering a drink (in the kitchen it's always cups and tablespoons and teaspoons). Since my only history of ordering drinks was half a century ago in West Germany, I have to convert from fluid ounces to milliliters in order to have any idea how big the drink will be (1 fl.oz. ≈ 30 ml, the subject of a webpage I've been working on).So my webpage on approximating converting from metric to "English" in order to learn to visualize the metric measurement started out as an examination of why we haven't switched over already. I'm in favor of switching over to using metric and couldn't understand the opposition to it, thinking that opposition to be irrational. But as I started writing that page and researching I learned that there are rational reasons for not switching and I was able to better understand the opposing opinions.As such, that is a case where explaining my position in writing led to my learning more and to understanding the opposing position better.That page has been superseded by another describing simple methods for approximating metric measurements into "English". In typical apologetic style, I found a quote which justifies my approach:

quote:

---

Dr. Stratton, Director of the National Bureau of Standards. From his testimony before US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. The Metric System of Weights and Measures; (Hearings on H.R. 2054). 57th Congress, 1st Session. 1902:

​

(my emphasis added)

​

"Certain objections have from time to time been raised in opposition to the adoption of the metric system, but the experience of other countries and of our own has shown that many of these objections are without foundation. Let us take for example the most serious objection of all, which is that we have learned to think in the old system of weights and measures. Manufacturers, mechanics, tradesmen, consumers, and in fact all classes of people have learned to think in the old system of weights and measures. They have acquired experience as to sizes, quantities, and relations, and this experience is daily used in new business, new designs, and new relations. These mental comparisons are never exact measurements, but none the less important . . . Fortunately in this case, the difficulty is not nearly as great as those who are unfamiliar with the metric system would have us believe. There are in all cases simple approximate ratios which will lighten the burdens of the transition stage . . . In a comparatively short time people would learn to think in the new system. The importance of these simple approximate relations cannot be overestimated, since they will prove of great assistance in the translation of our past experience in the common system to our future needs in the metric system.

---

Although I had already decided on that approach of devising simple approximations easy to calculate mentally, that quote expressed it well. That page is far from ready for publication (even retired I have too little free time), but if anyone is curious I could share a few.