From: jsue@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Jeffrey L. Sue)
Subject: Re: Weights and Measures
Originator: jsue@pluto.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Organization: The Dow Chemical Company
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 16:41:09 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.185714.3253@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne) writes:
>
>I've always been suprised that the international trade of the last 30 or 40
>years hasn't instituted more metric measurements.  Even the easy things to
>change haven't been changed.
>
>However, changing the speedometer of a car to read km instead of miles is
>a one time change.  Changing gasoline to be sold by the litre instead of
>the gallon should be an easy problem.

Car speedometers have had km/hr for quite some time.

I also recall that, for awhile, at least some of the gasoline stations
sold gas in liters.  I'm kind of fuzzy on this, but I think that one
big problem is that we couldn't conceptualize how much we were getting
for our money - especially older folks who knew very little about the
metric system.  The end result seemed to be a big lack of trust that
we weren't getting shafted with a virtual price increase.  A 'hidden'
price increase since we didn't have an exact measurement of what the
price should have been.

>Almost all commercially sold items could be easily sold on a metric basis
>since you don't order by units anyway (you buy however many pounds the steak
>weighs--so whether it's ounces or grams is totally irrelevant.
>

Again, if I buy 2 pounds of hamburger, I know exactly what I'm getting, but
without something to show the difference between 2-pounds of meat and one
kilogram of meat, I don't know if I'm getting enough for what I need. Also
I don't know if I'm being cheated on the price.

>
>Liquor is sold by metric (probably because much of it is imported) and now we
>see 750 ml, 1000 ml instead of pints, quarts and fifths (now that's a strange
>one, too).
>

Something that has such a drastic social effect for us needs to be
done in a much slower phased-in approach.  Having the metric
equivalences on packages, and selling pop and alcohol in metric units
gives us a chance to become familiar with a system that is new to many
people.  Also, placing km/h along with mp/h on the speedometers - and
even on speed limit signs - will go a long way to helping us become more
familiar with metric measurements.

Machinery (nuts & bolts, etc) presents a different problem.  Many, if
not most, auto mechanics will have metric tools as well as
US-measurement ones.  Many people have purchased metric tools as well.
Over time you could expect that more machinery and autos to convert
"new" products to a metric system with a much smaller impact.  The
number older "standard" machines should eventually become small enough that
we don't manufacture as many parts for them (nuts & bolts, etc.).  Again,
this has to be a slow process to prevent absolute chaos.

Whether any of this is actually happening, or whether there is really
any cohesive plan such as this, I don't know.  The prevalence of
metric "things", and the persistence of them in the US market, seems to
indicate that we could eventually drop the so-called "standard" measurement
system... but when?


-- 
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Jeff Sue   
 - All opinions are mine -       (and you can't have any, nya nya nya)
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