National Public Radio has a program called Science Friday on (when else) Friday afternoons. This week there was an interview with Max Donelan, whose research on harnessing energy from walking was featured during the first segment. Being from Canada, Dr. Donelan pretty much kept it metric, with some pounds being sprinkled here and there. However, towards the end, where he really got into some serious grams and kilograms, he finished up by saying to the host "sorry about the metric." There was no need for that, since the host didn't react or correct him at all, but it obviously illustrates how we are perceived on the outside vis a vis metric. Here's the link: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200802082
The next segment was a gut wrenching "How Much is a Trillion?" The guest, author David Schwartz, used simple everyday examples to give people the sense of scale of large numbers. All examples were in customary, with many, many unit conversions going on. And here's this link: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200802085 Remek
