On Apr 6 , at 11:30 AM, John M. Steele wrote:
... about the evils of conversion ... I feel there is too much old data out there, that we can't justify remeasuring everything. We must be able to convert from Customary/Imperial to metric
I don't think anyone doubts this, John. Of course we don't need to go our and measure metrically something that is already well known; not when we have a perfectly good value in an old system that can be simply (and properly) converted. However, conversions are not the kind of thing that the general public needs to worry about and should be de- emphasized when dealing with most people. Emphasis on conversion skills is what makes people think the metric system is hard and that adopting it will be hard.
Here's the way I put it to my Metric Classes and to my seminars/talks for teachers:
"Don't teach or do conversions from one system to another. That is the most difficult and the most useless thing to learn.
"Yes, there will be some conversions that have to be done as we adopt the metric system, but they will be done by experts or specialists in the field. It will not need to be done by the everyday consumer. When you need to know a converted value, these experts will provide it for you."
Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA ========================== Make It Simple; Make It Metric! ==========================
