20th may, Historical date!

[David Wilson]

Back in the 1970's, there was indeed agreement that we should all move in 
the direction of worldwide adoption of the metric standard.  A lot of grand 
gestures were made at the time, including rebasing US weights and measures 
on the metric system.  However, true adoption of the metric system in the 
US, which demands not only learning and thinking in terms of the metric 
system, but using it in preference to the US system, has largely failed.

In the scientific arena, the metric system has been standard for quite some 
time.  This is good in the sense that it provides a common ground for 
scientific measurement around the world and proves the metric system is 
workable, but bad in that the scientific community now has little interest 
in promoting the system communally, having already arrived.

In business, it is agreed that metricization would grease the wheels of 
commerce.  Adoption of metric units for shipping and billing materials 
certainly decreases conversion costs by leveraging the ubiquitous base-10 
numeration system.  But the main benefit of metricization is derived from 
producing goods in quantities that can be sold worldwide.  Instead of making 
1 lb 10 oz boxes of salt for sale in the US and 500 gm (sic?) boxes for sale 
in the U.K, it would be cheaper and easier in the long run to make only 500 
gm boxes for a worldwide market, which could be relabelled for sale wherever 
needed.

But that's in the long run.  In the short run, there is a lot of 
manufacturing equipment geared towards production of goods in US units, and 
retooling or replacing that equipment is expensive.  Also, any US company 
that adopts metric sizing must sell its goods on the same shelf with 
competing products packaged in more familiar US units, which will presumably 
put it at competitive disadvantage.  The costs of metricization are borne 
heavily by firms operating primarily within the US markets, while the 
benefits are reaped primarily by firms operating in global markets.

Nevertheless, the 1970's push for metricization met with some limited 
success.  Many foreign manufacturers were able to find US markets for 
products that were already metricized, such as automobiles and heavy 
equipment (for which reason, Average American has both US and metric socket 
wrenches in his tool arsenal).  Most firms made the token gesture gesture of 
adding metric equivalents to their packaging.  Probably the most remarkable 
example of true metricization was the introduction of liter-sized beverage 
bottles onto store shelves, though 2-liter soda bottles still sit side by 
side with 12-ounce cans.

Finally, there is the cultural issue.  While the metric system has benefits, 
the US system is present and perfectly workable.  We get along fine with our 
mm/dd/yy, a.m. and p.m, cups and teaspoons, feet, inches and miles.  What 
benefit would the average American actually derive from metricization?  For 
the most part, there would be little difference.  We would buy oil in liters 
instead of quarts, pills with mg instead of grains of medicine, flour in 2.5 
kg bags instead of 5-pound bags, but we would still dump the oil in our 
engine, take two pills at bedtime, and dump the flour in the canister (then 
use our cups and tablespoons to fetch it out).  The few times it did matter, 
it would simply be an annoyance to have to adjust our thinking to the new 
units (1200 km, how many miles is that?).  We start with a workable set of 
units, go through a painful adjustment period, and end up with a workable 
set of units.  Hmmm.

In short, my argument is that metrization is a painful process for the 
average American citizen and American business, with benefits accruing 
mainly to multinational business interests.

Good luck with the metric dates too.  It's all good to point a finger at the 
backwards Americans, so let's see the Europeans ante up and change the way 
they write dates.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Guy" <rkg at cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
To: "Alonso Del Arte" <alonso.delarte at gmail.com>
Cc: <alexandre.wajnberg at skynet.be>; <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>; "Math Fun" 
<math-fun at mailman.xmission.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: 20th may, Historical date!


>A little over 30 years ago, almost all nations
> agreed (when else has this happened? --
> over the postal system, perhaps -- not over
> copyright ?) on the (adoption and) use of
> the ``metric system''.
>
> I quote from the Metric Style Guide:
>
>   For example, April 7, 1975, is
>   expressed as 1975 04 07.
>   Alternative ways of writing this
>   numeric date are 1975-04-07 or
>   19750407.
>
> Times can be appended, using the 24-hour
> clock.          R.
>
> On Wed, 11 May 2005, Alonso Del Arte wrote:
>
>> As much sense as DDMMYYYY makes (smallest unit to largerst unit), many
>> of us live where MMDDYYYY is more prevalent, or even MMDDYY, as well
>> as miles and gallons. So here 20 May 2005 is 5/20/2005, hardly special
>> from the point of view of symmetry. Alonso
>>
>> On 5/10/05, alexandre.wajnberg at skynet.be <alexandre.wajnberg at skynet.be> 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello dear Seqfans and friends,
>>>
>>> Nicolas Graner (member of the Oulipo litterary movement) has devised a 
>>> ...
>>