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Posted on 05/15/2006 10:41:02 AM PDT by Junior
NORWICH, Conn. - Brent Maynard says he weighs 74 kilograms and is 169 centimeters tall. And if you ask him for directions, he'll give them in kilometers.
Maynard, a chemistry professor at Three Rivers Community College, is a champion for the metric system, a man who helped erect distance and speed signs in kilometers and whose goal in life is to see America ditch the standard system.
But in a country that's hooked on pounds, gallons and miles, it is a lonely cause. Last October during National Metric Week he sat alone in front of Norwich City Hall wearing a pro-metric placard and asking for signatures on a petition to get the U.S. Postal Service to weigh and measure packages in metric. Six people signed it.
Maynard, 52, a metrics fanatic since the age of 14, is used to the tepid response. He founded two metric associations in 1993 in Plainfield and in York, Maine. Each has about six members.
"They're not as passionate about it as I am," he said. "They kind of just go along with it."
Like most American youth, Maynard learned metrics in high school but unlike others, he has embraced it. He's even special ordered his truck with an odometer that reads distance in kilometers and writes congratulatory letters to companies that convert to dual labeling on products.
Maynard argues metrics is simpler because it's based on powers of 10 and more effective because the rest of the world uses it in business and in the military.
But despite several laws recognizing metric as the preferred system of measurement in the U.S., it's been slow to gain footing. The U.S. remains the only industrialized nation in the world to predominantly use the standard system, also known as the English system.
That doesn't mean metric measurements haven't crept into daily life in America. Soda comes in liters, film is in millimeters and electricity power is based on watts. Most food products use grams on their labels.
The hodgepodge of units has led to problems. In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere because NASA navigators mistakenly thought a contractor used metric measurements when standard units were actually used.
"It's confusing to use two systems — even for rocket scientists," said Lorelle Young, president of the U.S. Metric Association.
In Plainfield, where Maynard's association put up distance signs in kilometers, residents aren't even aware of the signs, even when they're right down the street.
Marlene Chenail, 70, lives up the street from one of Maynard's signs. She says she doesn't know the meaning behind "RI state border 8 km."
"We've never really looked at it but we know that it's there," Chenail said.
Maynard attributes the unfamiliarity to America's resistance to change and the perception that it's a foreign system.
"We seem, in our culture, awfully afraid to challenge people to think," he said.
While Maynard is one of the few adamantly promoting the system, there are others who speak out against metrication.
Seaver Leslie, president of Americans for Customary Weight and Measure in Wiscasset, Maine, said Americans shouldn't be forced to use either and argues that standard units are superior because the units are human-based and has history. The furlong — an eighth of a mile — is the distance a farmer could plow in a field and still be in earshot of his house if there was danger, Leslie said. Etymologists believe the word represents the distance a team of oxen could plow without needing a rest.
"They're very practical and very poetic," Leslie said. "They have worked for the farmer in the field, the carpenter in the shop and large contractors in industry and for our aerospace industry."
> I like American traditions and uniqueness. I love American sovereignty. I'll stick with good ol' miles, feet, gallons, ounces and pounds.
The metric system is nothing but a French scheme to charge more for less. It's pounds, quarts and inches at our house.
In all seriousness, 10 doesn't factor except into 2s and 5s, and that's useless in the real world.
We had signs like that for a decade or so in California with distances in both miles and kilometers, but like the red colored "55" on 70s and 80s speedometers, they have disappeared and been replaced with mileage only signs.
You've outed yourself on this thread. You've got a real job.
Or I took physics once.
SD
I bet he's just eccentric...
169 cm = ~ 5'6"
More like 1.85 meters tall...
FWIW, I read the other day in a Construction textbook that the reason why the US hasn't switched is because a system for integrating it into construction standards did not exist.
But, that one was being designed and was almost ready to be distributed, and that once that happend, the switch all around would happen.
I'll convert in a millisecond.
I don't like the idiotic system based on gills, hogsheads, pints, fluid ounces, avoirdupois ounces, and other nonsense.
5,280 what?
Is this a bit of American superiority that I detect here in many of these comments?
Exceptionalism, sure.
But for most people it's simply conservativism at its purest level. Which means change occurs only for good reasons.
Where we have economic or academic reasons to involve ourselves with the French system of measurement, we do so. Gladly and without regret.
But where there is no compelling reason to change, there is a compelling reason not to change. There is no reason why a dairy farmer selling milk to local consumers needs to switch to liters instead of gallons. If there is a good reason (there's more pop in a 2 liter bottle than a 2 quart one) we switch.
It's really that simple. People in our culture use the measurements we have always used, or developed for the task at hand. They're organic. Being told to use something foreign for no good reason will always meet with resistance.
SD
Conversion for construction is much more complicated than it appears.
Everything in the National Building Code used to be based on 4 inch modules -- e.g. 16" between studs, 48" X 96" plywood, etc. A "hard conversion" uses 10 cm. modules -- close but not the same. Metric plywood is slightly smaller at 1200 mm X 2400 mm (everything is measured in millimeters, to avoid any need for decimals or fractions). Thicknesses are different too.
Most house builders still use Imperial (I think). The two don't mix. If you use metric plans, you need metric materials -- soft conversions simply aren't practical. (Too many decimals.)
You can get by without a metric hammer though. :-)
I did not know that, thank you.
Am relatively new to the Construction industry.
"The English system is so weird that I'm not even sure what the main unit of mass is."
I believe it is the slug, which if memory serves, and it probably doesn't, is a mass which weighs 32.2 lbs.
Which immediately conjures up images of lead disks or garden pests, neither of which masses 32.2 lbs, last time I checked.
When they were pushing conversion to the metric system, I don't remember anyone ever coming up with a figure of what it would cost (either in pounds or dollars). /p
It would mean that every machine shop and factory would have billions of dollars tied up in machinery (lathes, milling machines, etc) that would be almost useless as soon as the conversion were complete; not to mention all of the tool boxes which, at the time, contained nothing but SAE wrenches and sockets.
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
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