I was reminded today that sometimes we metricators lose sight of the
forest for the trees. We're always talking so much about how the U.S. is
not completely metricated that we overlook the increasing number of areas
in which it is becoming metricated.
Some of you may have heard on the national news this morning of a moderate
earthquake that we had in Oakland, California. I happened to be watching
Oakland's local TV news station at the time. The experienced traffic
reporter, who has been with the channel for many years, must have
immediately gone onto the U.S. Geological Service site to get the
information, which is available these days in just a couple of minutes.
The USGS site is metric, with no conversions and no apologies. The
traffic reporter stated that the epicenter of the earthquake was 1
kilometer from Piedmont, California. He did no conversion. Later, the
anchormen announced that the earthquake was 1 kilometer, "or a little less
than a mile," from Piedmont. Later broadcasts used the mile figure.
I follow golf a little on television. I have noticed that the European
tournaments, where the distance of the holes is signed in meters, are
described by American commentators in meters. Occasionally, they they
will give a quick conversion to feet (probably with those new
distance-meters that golfers use), but most of the time they stick just to
meters. I haven't once heard an objection.
I think that we can learn some things from these incidents.
1) Americans may be more familiar with the metric system than we give them
credit for, so more of them feel comfortable using kilometers.
2) People are intrinsically lazy, so they will grab information in
whatever form it comes. If it is in metric, so be it.
3) Because of the international nature of news these days, with cable
channels coming into the United States from Canada, France, Russia, and
the Middle East, and more people getting their news off of the internet
than from U.S. TV stations, people are hearing metric units more and more
as a matter of course. I haven't once heard an objection.
4) News wire services (AP, AFP, Reuters) are international in scope. It
is easier for them to use metric for a worldwide audience. Sometimes they
put U.S. Obsolescent Units in parentheses afterward, but less and less as
time goes on.
Remember when incandescent light-bulbs were replaced by compact
fluorescents? There was a major conversion when this happened from watts
to lumens. (Actually, watts are a metric unit too, but CFLs uses less
wattage for the same luminence.) This was a much more radical change than
miles to kilometers. I doubt that very few but scientists and us
metricators even knew what a lumen was! Yet, I heard no outcry. There
were some conversion charts and labels that indicated the equivalent
wattage for legacy bulbs, but eventually these will go away, and the
proper unit for luminence, the lumen, will be the only unit used.
Today I noticed in the grocery store a Coke in the old-style glass Coke
bottle. It came from Mexico (when Cokes come from Mexico, you know that
the U.S. economy is in trouble!) As I happened to look at the nutrition
label, I noticed that the bottle was marked "355 ml." I guess that was
supposed to be 12 U.S. fluid ounces, but I looked all over the bottle, and
I could find no ounce equivalent given. Will it be long before these
bottles are 350 ml, or even 375 ml, to equate to a standard size of wine
bottle?
What is the moral of the story for us at USMA? I'm not completely sure at
the moment. Don, Paul, and the rest will have more insight, but what I do
know is that we need to rethink our approach, just as Don and Paul are
doing now. The old saw about the U.S. being the only non-metric country
except for two tiny Asian states is the wrong message, and -- worse -- it
is false. We are metricating, faster than ever before, but the impetus is
not coming from government, for the most part.
There is an advantage in this. When the government does things, all the
ignorants rev up the anti-metric political nonsense. When private
industry and media do it, there is essentially no resistence. It just
happens. In this context, I am very happy to see the U.S. Metric
Association's new motto: "Advocating the Completion of U.S. Conversion to
the Metric System." That nails it!
Martin Morrison
Metric Training and Education Columnist
Metric Today
