I remember when I read the book, I was pleased to see that the rather
extensive use of calculations was all metric. I hoped at the time that
the film, if it ever came out, wouldn't try to 'dumb down' this.
I was pleasantly surprised that the movie remained true, and all the
dialog consisted of metric units too. I was only able to find one
reference to Colonial Units in the whole thing, and that was quite
obscure (see end of message if you've seen the film but can't remember it).
Overall though, kudos to the studio - great job.
Incidentally, it's a fine film - I'd highly recommend it (as did
everyone else I know that saw it). The book too is a great read (and
has even more near misses and setbacks than the film).
[the only non-metric units I saw were in the Heads Up Display (HUD) on
the spacesuits. The pressure was reported in PSI, even though all other
units, including temperature in Celsius, were metric]
Tom Wade
tom dot wade at tomwade dot eu
On 2015-10-05 15:54, Harry Wyeth wrote:
Thanks for the info. I was wondering about this very issue but
haven't gotten around to seeing the movie. I read the book and liked
the SI usage. Bravo for the movie producers!
HARRY WYETH
On 10/5/15 509:09, Ressel, Howard R (DOT) wrote:
Saw The Martian movie last night, excellent geek movie and very much
promotes science and engineering but more importantly it’s all SI.
In my opinion probably the best use of SI in a movie that I have ever
seen. Not even a joke or quip about using metric, just part of their
natural conversation. This is especially cool since NASA has been a
big behind in this regard.
*Howard R. Ressel*
Project Design Engineer
New York State Department of Transportation
1530 Jefferson Road, Rochester, NY 14623
(585) 272-3372 | howard.res...@dot.ny.gov
www.dot.ny.gov
Metric Means Jobs and Money!
