Apparently, measurement makes even stranger bedfellows than politics. The rest of his politics seem WAY too liberal for me, but I can't disagree on adopting metric. Will this finally make metric a rallying cry for liberal intellectuals across America?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509364
<<Celsius 488

Metric is elegant (think: the French)
Published On Wednesday, October 26, 2005 12:23 AM
By CHARLES R DRUMMOND IV

Harvard students get upset about a lot of things. Granted, getting a “living wage” for our janitorial staff is extremely important. But perhaps there are other issues out there that are of more importance.

For instance, Harvard prides itself on being a diverse university, a university that embraces its cosmopolitan and international flavor. And yet, it still hangs onto at least one tradition which smacks of cultural hubris: the U.S. customary units of measurement, derived from the British Imperial system.

The very name of the U.S. customary units’ progenitor should be enough to elicit the contempt and ire of Harvard students, but alas, for the most part they remain blissfully unconcerned. There is no student group lobbying for inclusive and internationalist measurements (although I’m told that some members on the Curricular Review are critical of the Imperial system’s “approaches to measuring”). No one seems to be concerned that Harvard students measure the volume of beer in gallons and barrels, not in liters. No one bats an eye when BTUs (British Thermal Units) are used and not kilojoules. But I am not content simply to sit around, waiting for Harvard to change. Along with that stalwart band of those in favor of metrification, I am called to action: Harvard must stop supporting American hubris through the use of the Imperial system, and it must do so immediately.

In all seriousness, America cannot reject the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocols and the metric system. Something simply has to give. The best method for Harvard to protest our nation’s uncouth tendencies toward unilateralism is simply to get rid of the Imperial system, or—as I’m told Bush calls it in private—“the freedom system.” Surely no one would disagree that America’s domineering and swaggering use of the inch and the pound is closely linked to our nation’s going to war in Iraq. Let’s not forget that, if we switched to metric, gasoline would go from costing (on average) $2.73 per gallon to $0.72 per liter—we all know that wouldn’t please Cheney’s Haliburton friends. Unfortunately, even a person as erudite as Michael Moore failed to see the close link between the war and the U.S. customary units when he called his insightful, scholarly opus on the War in Iraq Fahrenheit 911 and not Celsius 488.

When will Harvard (and America) join the rest of the world? We cannot and should not continue with pounds-per-square-inch when we could be using the far more elegant pascals. We cannot and should not continue with drams and stones, when centigrams and kilograms could be used instead. Metric is elegant (think: the French), while Imperial is ugly, cocky, authoritarian. (Perhaps it should continue to be used in the “red states,” but not anywhere near civilized folks).

Moreover, it must be acknowledged that the metric system is vastly more intuitive and logical than the imperial system. Certainly a meter (which is defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second) is far less arbitrary of a unit than a yard. (Then again, to be fair, the meter was originally defined as “one ten-millionth of the length of the earth’s meridian along a quadrant.”)

So why hasn’t Harvard taken the plunge? Perhaps President Summers isn’t sure if Harvard’s female scientists can make the switch from ounces to grams on their recipe cards. Whatever the case may be, switching to metric would greatly benefit the school. Tour guides would then be able to answer the pressing question on so many tourists’ minds: how many hectares is Harvard Yard?
>>

Oops, got name and message title in wrong boxes. That was me; "name" should have been "title."

So can someone explain how the metre is declared an arbitrary unit and the yard is not?

I think this editorial is just another example of someone who is upset that America's clinging to non-metric is costing the US big time. Jobs being exported, inch based factories shutting down, one way trade (metric products in - non-metric products going nowhere), and the list goes on and on.

These people just keep chewing on those sour grapes and the pent up anger explodes when they come to realize that the price of not being metric is affecting them directly in their pocketbooks. Not being metric is helping diminish their middle class living standard. The hidden metric in products must be the biggest sore spot of them all.

Just keep those Chinese metric products coming to America's shores. Your beer might not be in gallons, but your wine, hard liquor and soft drinks are. Maybe a good swift belt of Jack Daniels from a standard 1.75 L whiskey bottle might just cure this guy of his metric jealousy.

There you go again! Attack the Jack Daniels and suddenly a post that makes no sense.

Now you're sober - tell us, are metric France's jobs not being exported to China? What about Spain's jobs? Even (shock horror) Germany's jobs? (Daniel: No NO NO!!)

Coem on! Kick the bottle and start making sense!

<<
So can someone explain how the metre is declared an arbitrary unit and the yard is not?
>>

Because the yard evolved over time, and the metre was set once and for all.

"Because the yard evolved over time, and the metre was set once and for all. "

Now that is pure and absolute bovine scat. Things that change over time, change because they are never right and you have to keep tweaking them to make them right, which you never do. Something that never changes is defined as perfect. It doesn't have to evolve or adapt. The world around it adapts to it. If it wasn't for the metre, the yard would still be changing, as would every other imperial unit. Clinging to the metre, which is perfect is what stopped the evolution from continuing.

The metre has proven its perfection by becoming the fundamental unit of length, the yard never achieved that status. If it continues to exist much longer it will always be a parasite unit trying to follow in the footsteps of the metre.

I genuinely feel sorry for you

"Now you're sober - tell us, are metric France's jobs not being exported to China? What about Spain's jobs? Even (shock horror) Germany's jobs? (Daniel: No NO NO!!)"


From a metric point of view, it doesn't matter. The products once made in these countries in metric are still made in metric in China. American products, once made in USC in the US are now made in metric in China. The point is an American company that wants to produce its products in metric but feels the American worker would oppose such a move has an incentive to go outside the US to do it.

If Spain, France or Germany go to China it is strictly for economic reasons. If an American company goes to China it can be for more then just an economic reason. The outcome is that all foreign goods imported into the US are metric and the American consumer has to deal with metric products they didn't have to decades ago.

<<The point is an American company that wants to produce its products in metric but feels the American worker would oppose such a move has an incentive to go outside the US to do it.
>>

You make this claim very repetitively, but I don't think the worker is the problem. (The consumer may be the problem unless you hide the metric from him.) The US auto industry converted in the early 70's. The UAW, not the easiest union in the world to lead to water, went along. Japanese and European transplants also assemble metric light vehicles (category includes both car and light truck) in the US, and the worker went along. I have less experience with other industries who HAVE gone metric, but the worker always seems to go along if management has the will.

I would further point out the auto industry is a perfect example of "stealth metric" where the design, parts procurement, and manufacture is metric, but with a few Imperial measurements on a data sheet, the consumer either doesn't know or doesn't care. You don't have to go to China for that. You may have to go to China for affordable wages. The UAW is pricey.

If you gave a worker the choice of switching to metric or losing his job to someone in China, he would have to be out of his mind to choose the latter.
Is this what you are saying is happening? Workers telling their bosses "go ahead and send our jobs to China if you want, but we refuse to work in metric."