Back in the 1970's, there was indeed agreement that we should all move in the direction of worldwide adoption of the metric standard. A lot of grand gestures were made at the time, including rebasing US weights and measures on the metric system. However, true adoption of the metric system in the US, which demands not only learning and thinking in terms of the metric system, but using it in preference to the US system, has largely failed. In the scientific arena, the metric system has been standard for quite some time. This is good in the sense that it provides a common ground for scientific measurement around the world and proves the metric system is workable, but bad in that the scientific community now has little interest in promoting the system communally, having already arrived. In business, it is agreed that metricization would grease the wheels of commerce. Adoption of metric units for shipping and billing materials certainly decreases conversion costs by leveraging the ubiquitous base-10 numeration system. But the main benefit of metricization is derived from producing goods in quantities that can be sold worldwide. Instead of making 1 lb 10 oz boxes of salt for sale in the US and 500 gm (sic?) boxes for sale in the U.K, it would be cheaper and easier in the long run to make only 500 gm boxes for a worldwide market, which could be relabelled for sale wherever needed. But that's in the long run. In the short run, there is a lot of manufacturing equipment geared towards production of goods in US units, and retooling or replacing that equipment is expensive. Also, any US company that adopts metric sizing must sell its goods on the same shelf with competing products packaged in more familiar US units, which will presumably put it at competitive disadvantage. The costs of metricization are borne heavily by firms operating primarily within the US markets, while the benefits are reaped primarily by firms operating in global markets. Nevertheless, the 1970's push for metricization met with some limited success. Many foreign manufacturers were able to find US markets for products that were already metricized, such as automobiles and heavy equipment (for which reason, Average American has both US and metric socket wrenches in his tool arsenal). Most firms made the token gesture gesture of adding metric equivalents to their packaging. Probably the most remarkable example of true metricization was the introduction of liter-sized beverage bottles onto store shelves, though 2-liter soda bottles still sit side by side with 12-ounce cans. Finally, there is the cultural issue. While the metric system has benefits, the US system is present and perfectly workable. We get along fine with our mm/dd/yy, a.m. and p.m, cups and teaspoons, feet, inches and miles. What benefit would the average American actually derive from metricization? For the most part, there would be little difference. We would buy oil in liters instead of quarts, pills with mg instead of grains of medicine, flour in 2.5 kg bags instead of 5-pound bags, but we would still dump the oil in our engine, take two pills at bedtime, and dump the flour in the canister (then use our cups and tablespoons to fetch it out). The few times it did matter, it would simply be an annoyance to have to adjust our thinking to the new units (1200 km, how many miles is that?). We start with a workable set of units, go through a painful adjustment period, and end up with a workable set of units. Hmmm. In short, my argument is that metrization is a painful process for the average American citizen and American business, with benefits accruing mainly to multinational business interests. Good luck with the metric dates too. It's all good to point a finger at the backwards Americans, so let's see the Europeans ante up and change the way they write dates. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Guy" <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> To: "Alonso Del Arte" <alonso.delarte@gmail.com> Cc: <alexandre.wajnberg@skynet.be>; <seqfan@ext.jussieu.fr>; "Math Fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 2:44 PM Subject: Re: 20th may, Historical date!
A little over 30 years ago, almost all nations agreed (when else has this happened? -- over the postal system, perhaps -- not over copyright ?) on the (adoption and) use of the ``metric system''.
I quote from the Metric Style Guide:
For example, April 7, 1975, is expressed as 1975 04 07. Alternative ways of writing this numeric date are 1975-04-07 or 19750407.
Times can be appended, using the 24-hour clock. R.
On Wed, 11 May 2005, Alonso Del Arte wrote:
As much sense as DDMMYYYY makes (smallest unit to largerst unit), many of us live where MMDDYYYY is more prevalent, or even MMDDYY, as well as miles and gallons. So here 20 May 2005 is 5/20/2005, hardly special from the point of view of symmetry. Alonso
On 5/10/05, alexandre.wajnberg@skynet.be <alexandre.wajnberg@skynet.be> wrote:
Hello dear Seqfans and friends,
Nicolas Graner (member of the Oulipo litterary movement) has devised a ...