Edumacated
Feb. 5th, 2006 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This afternoon Omaha and I and the girls did our weekly grocery shopping. I went up to the deli and said, "I'd like eight ounces of sliced roast beef, please."
The girl behind the counter looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment and then said, "How much is that? I'm not very good with ounces."
The girl behind the counter looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment and then said, "How much is that? I'm not very good with ounces."
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 04:38 am (UTC)I expect it happens to everyone who lives long enough...
A.M.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 07:02 pm (UTC)Or maybe she was just having a 'duh' moment.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 09:42 am (UTC)Things like pounds, inches, and gallons are all actually legally defined in terms of grams, and centimeters. The controlling document is "NIST Special Publication 811", which you get get online from the NIST's website.
It's just that the controlling legal system will have a very hard time finding an effective way to *stop* people from using "English" units. All our stuff is already labelled in metric.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 02:38 am (UTC)There's a reason for that (which you, f.p., probably know, but others might not): the rank-n-file of NIST are physicists, chemists, and other scientists.
Metric is the system of units of science.
Actually, no, let me correct that: There is a system of units, used worldwide by all branches of science, called "SI" units. What we call "metric" is a subset of the SI units, and has, for some time now, been using a completely different set of definitions than the ones laid down in Paris 2 centuries ago...
...all but the kilogram, which is the only SI unit still defined in terms of an anthrocentric artifact. All of the other SI units are defined in terms of the fundamental SI units, which in turn are defined using physical properties.
(There are physicists whose careers are devoted to improving experiments to measure the natural phenomena that define a meter, a second, an ampere, ...)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 09:36 am (UTC)When I go to the deli and do something like "2 oz roast beef, please", quite often the clerk will grab a handful, then drop a few pieces back, hold it for a moment, and then dump it on the scale, and it will be within 10% of the requested amount.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 12:47 am (UTC)