National Metric Week

First a list of resources for teachers.

Base number system and culinary complaints aside (Hat tip to flyingsirkus), the English Imperial System is a complicated, verbose, bloated system of measurement that contributes to mathematical and scientific illiteracy in America. Using dual systems, standard for commoners, metric for scientists, cost us a $125 million Mars orbiter 1999.

Standard uses 14 different units to measure length (inch, foot, yard, mile, fathom, rod, furlong, league, mil, pole, perch, hand, link, chain). Converting between these different units requires a great deal of rote memorization, as there is nothing connecting the units. There are 12 inches in a foot (base-12?), three feet in a yard (12 X 3), and 1760 yards in a mile (no relation to three or 12). Metric may use a base-10 number system, which is not optimum, but Standard uses a a base-whatever number system, which is nonsensical.

Metric uses one unit for length, the meter combined with a prefix (micro, milli, centi, deci, deca, hecto, kilo, mega, etc… etc…). Measuring area, volume, mass, force, or whatever else you can think of works the same way: a root unit combined with a prefix. Units are related to one another as powers of ten, and we are already (almost) using metric in computing, where a 100,000 kilobytes equals 1,000 megabytes equals one gigabyte.

This post can only serve as food for thought, we still use QWERTY keyboards despite the development of more efficient layouts. So converting to a metric-based society is something that can only happen as our obsolete elders… you know… croak.

National Metric Week is brought to you by the U.S. Metric Association.

AOEUIDHTNS!!!