Excellent letter Paul - but will the President of the USA ever get to read it for himself?
John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Trusten To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:08 PM Subject: [USMA:49629] U.S. changeover to the metric system of measurement - a long-overdue goal for science competitiveness The President The White House Washington, DC 20500 2011-01-26 Dear Mr. President, We at the U.S. Metric Association (USMA), Inc., have been encouraged by your State Of The Union message of progress, particularly in your strong support for making U.S. students more competitive globally. However, there remains an 800-kilogram gorilla in the room, which we hope you, as our President, will expose: the continued delay in U.S. changeover to the metric system of measurement as the Nation's primary, everyday measurement standard. If there is any one indicator of U.S. national malaise in science, it is our continued reluctance to adopt the world's measurement system, the International System of Units (SI, the modern metric system) as our own. The process of making the changeover is called metrication. As of now, only three countries have not metricated: Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America. How can we be serious contenders in the global game of science, technology, and culture, if we persist in our measurement isolation? Not only is the metric system the world measurement standard, it is also a very simple system to learn and use. It is a decimal system, much like the U.S. system of decimal currency, which we pioneered for the world. For example, instead of 5,280 feet in one mile, we will be using 1,000 meters in one kilometer, meaning that the scale of the unit can be changed merely by moving a decimal point and using a prefix. The economies involved in using decimal numbers in measurement instead of cumbersome fractions, have yet to be fully realized in daily American practice, but we can take an additional hint from the stock exchanges, which switched to decimal pricing from "pieces of eight" pricing only a few years ago. As a first step toward U.S. metrication, I ask that you urge U.S. schools to teach the SI metric system only, and cease all teaching and all use of any system of measurement other than SI metric in the classroom. Our students must become fluent in the metric system with all possible speed. They will flock to its ease and its "cool" features! As a second step, I hope you will consider re-establishing the U.S. Metric Board (USMB) as authorized by the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (the MCA), Pub. L. 94-168, Sec. 205d. As stated concisely in the Act, the USMB would bring together qualified representatives of each sector of our society to plan the changeover. While our students are changing over to metric-system thinking, a new USMB will write the coordinated plan for U.S. metrication and then submit the plan to the Congress for approval. In addition to the qualifications set forth in the MCA, I hope you will be sure to nominate to the USMB only those individuals who are personally committed to the metrication goal. USMA is a non-profit, national organization that has been supporting U.S. metrication and providing metric information since 1916. Never in our nearly 100-year history has our mission been more vital for the Nation's future success. We urge you to break the silence on this national goal, and lead us to make the goal a reality. SIncerely, Paul Trusten, R.Ph. , Vice President and Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. www.metric.org trus...@grandecom.net +1(432)528-8824
