11/04/02

FROM: Peter Jentel

> 2619 Eastwood
>
> Evanston. IL 60201-1517
>
> FAX and Phone: 847-475-1!33

Suggestions for the coming forum on packaging and labeling laws.

Two things that can be done easily and soon.

1\) changing the name of the thermometer degree from Celsius which is a
misnomer to Centigrade which is the proper name because in the Celsius
thermometer Zero is the temperature when water starts boiling and one
hundred is the temperature of the water when it starts to freeze. In
other words it is the opposite: numbers over 100 centigrade are
negative, which does not make sense. It is like calling a Ford a
Chevrolet. It is not right.

2\) The United States could easily switch to the use of the Centigrade
thermometer within a year provided the will is there and that people
could admit that switching from centigrade to Fahrenheit is very easy.
When one reads the temperature in centigrade, be/she just has to double
the number of degrees centigrade and add 30. For example 5 degrees
Centigrade makes 40 degrees Fahrenheit: five plus five plus thirty make
forty. It is not exact but it is close particularly if one adds one
tenth of the centigrade number every 10 degree enough for the usual
weather temperatures. Below freezing, one doubles the (negative)
centigrade figure and subtracts it from 32.

One thing which is being done wrong and should be corrected is the
despicable habit of writing KPH to mean kilometer per hour or K for
kilometer like a 10 K race. The rest of the world does not know what it
means. Kilo is the abbreviation for one thousand of any basic metric
unit.

Kilometer is abbreviated as km and \"kilometer per hour\" is expressed
as \"km/h. \" That is the way the rest of the world writes it Mr. Louis
Sokol used to say: \"We want the pure unadulterated SI for the United
States.\" He was right. Furthermore the SI is the international language
of measurement. To be understood by the international community we need
to use the same symbols as every one else.

The rest of the English speaking world who uses the SI units spells
metre and litre and gramme the way they are written here. Here again,
the United States should use the same spelling as every one else, which
would avoid confusion.

To come to the topic of the coming forum of November 7, the most
important thing is to understand that Consumer Protection and the Metric
System are two unseparable social structures that must work in
symbiosis. The purpose of consumer protection is to enable the buyer to
compare the quantity or weight of two similar products or commodities
with their individual prices. The reason this is most important is that
if we are to fight again to obtain from Congress at last a Metric Law
that will not be shelved and never implemented, we must insist that it
enact at the same time how things are to be packaged as to the weight,
call it mass if you like, or quantity.

That new law will have to prescribe that products have to be sold in
multiples of a basic weight for example: 25 g., 50 g., 100 g., 200 g.,
or 125 g., 250g.

500 g., 1 kg. or 30 cl., 60 cl., 120 cl. or again 37.5 cl., 75 cl., 1.5
L. 3 L. etc.

That way, the buyer can judge which size is the most advantageous simply
by multiplying by 2 or by two twice etc. If merchandisers are allowed to
use any size they want like 583 g., 1231 g., 1728g. etc., people will
hate the Metric System still more and we\'ll have only ourselves to
blame. Also only metric measures should be allowed at the exclusion of
the English measures. And fines should be dissuasive.

This forum is a wonderful opportunity to make the Metric System advance
in our country if we do the right changes because the people will love
both the packaging law and the Metric System.

> Peter Jentel

2619 Eastwood

Evanston, IL. 60201

\(847\) 475-2144