I’ve told this story before, but for those new on the list:
Many years ago the company for which I work bought some ticket printers from IER, a French company. The tickets are thermally sensitive (no ink), and the thermal print head was a long-term consumable. The specifications said it was good for 100 km of tickets. This befuddled those working on the project, because to them a km was something only used to measure road distance, and then “not here” in the good old United States. Since they knew even then that I only work in metric, they came to me and asked me how many boxes of tickets that was. I said, “Give me a ruler. A real ruler, one with millimeters on it. And give me a ticket.” They did (both). I measured the ticket. It was, for all practical purposes, 200 mm. (OK, it was probably eight of what they called “inches”, but close enough for this purpose.) I thought for about 10 seconds, then said, “500 boxes.” “How did you get that?” “Simple. 200 mm per ticket, five to a meter. There are 1000 tickets in the box, so that’s 200 m of tickets per box. Five boxes is one km. 500 boxes is 100 km. Now, do that in your head using your favorite units of inches and miles: eight inches and a bit over 62 miles.” Silence. Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of j...@frewston.plus.com Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 05:24 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:53321] RE: Presenting the metric system to the innumerate Try the fish tank problem. You have a fish tank 20 in x 10 in x 10 in (easy numbers to start with, but then it gets complicated). How many fish can it hold on the basis of 5 fish to a gallon? (Different answers for UK and US gallons). How much would the tank weigh? (Ignore the weight of the empty tank.) If the shelf on which it rests can JUST support your weight, and the tank must weigh no more than than half your weight, what is the maximum weight of the tank? (Again ignore the weight of the empty tank.) I can’t even think of doing this problem in imperial/USC units. Now do it in metric. Tank is 50 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm. Fish at the rate of one fish per liter. Volume = 50 x 20 x 20 cm = 20 000 cm³ = 20 L = 20 fish. 20 L weighs 20 kg. I weigh 66 kg, so well within the maximum 33 kg safe limit. Metric wins in this kind of problem every time. John F-L From: Martin Vlietstra <mailto:vliets...@btinternet.com> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 7:22 AM To: U.S. Metric Association <mailto:usma@colostate.edu> Subject: [USMA:53320] RE: Presenting the metric system to the innumerate Try finding the average height of the students in your class using feet and inches, then using metric units. Next try them with a problem that a friend and I had a few years ago –what should the approximate diameter of a sphere be if it is to accommodate 2000 tons of water. (They may assume that one long ton (2240 lbs) equals one short ton (2000 lbs) equals one tonne). I did this problem mentally when it was presented to me. My reasoning was: One tonne of water has a mass of one cubic metre. We need to construct a sphere of volume 2000 cubic metres If we work in units of 10 metres, we need to find the radius and therefore the diameter of a sphere with volume 2 units. If you made it simpler, by requiring a cube rather than a sphere, the answer works out at 10*(2)^0.333 metres or approximately 13 metres. I had the answer, while my friend, who was working out the same problem had started off : 2000*2240/62.5 to get the volume. (BTB, I am a Brit, so used tones of 2240 lbs – another good reason for the metric system). You might also like to warn your students about the hazards of drinking in the UK – our pints are larger than yours. Martin From: owner-u...@colostate.edu <mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu> [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Rittman Sent: 12 October 2013 18:25 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:53319] Presenting the metric system to the innumerate I like to present the metric system to college students by first getting them to see the value of a decimalized system of accounting. I tell them that Thomas Jefferson asked Congress in the 1790s (as Sec of State, not as Prez) to decimalize the dollar when it was adopted as the nation’s currency, as opposed to the 1 pound=20 shillings=240 pence system used by Britain. I’ve typically let them see the utility of this system of counting, by taking our year (2013), and asking them if we had 2013 pennies, how much money would we have, expressed in terms of dollars and cents? The exercise is designed to show people how easy it is, to recon 2013 pennies in blocks of 100. You don’t even have to do any multiplication or division, you just move the decimal and arrive at $20.13. I then tell them how easy it is to convert 1000 grams to kilograms, etc. The last time I tried this, I received a shock. I had 3 students volunteer an answer, and the first two got it wrong. Fortunately, the third student did state that 2013 cents was equal to 20 dollars and 13 cents, but I was shocked that the rest of the class was either silent or guessed wrong. I’m wondering if this is symptomatic of the group of students as a whole (college freshmen). Now I’m sure that some knew, but simply didn’t feel like voicing their opinion in a large group of people; some others might have been bored (has been known to happen in classes!)—but I’m still thinking that quite a few didn’t know. I think in the spring, I’ll give my students a short, anonymous survey to see if they can understand mathematical concepts like this. But in the meantime, my suspicions remain strong that many adults are close to being innumerate, if not already there. And I’m wondering how to present the metric system to them—to students who have no desire or ability to convert inches to feet to yards to miles, etc. If they don’t even bother with that, what difference would the metric system make to them? What attracted me to it was the standardization of it (there was only one kilometer, one gram, etc.), which made remembering statistics much easier. Of course students wouldn’t see this as much of an advantage. But apart from the ease of converting among units, what other benefits can be presented to the man in the street? No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com> Version: 2014.0.4158 / Virus Database: 3614/6743 - Release Date: 10/11/13
