I'm glad you weren't too surprised by the statement. It is not really at odds with my prior statenments that sometimes conversion is necessary. My point is that it should not be taught to or done by elementary school children or even high school. It is much better taught to engineering students, who by then have more math under their belts, and can make some sensible judgements about the conversions. It should also be one way, Customary (or Imperial) to SI (although by then they know too much math, and will undoubtedly realize that dividing instead of multiplying reverses the process).
--- On Wed, 10/7/09, Pat Naughtin <pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com> wrote: From: Pat Naughtin <pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com> Subject: [USMA:45953] Re: teaching customary units To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 4:38 PM Dear John, I particularly like your line, 'Conversions are the work of the devil …' and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that metric conversions delay the introduction of the metric system dramatically.
