Please try any of these keywords in Google


human-scale natural units
natural units
Planck quantities
postmetric

or check out my site

http://www.planck.com/unitsindex.htm

I believe a key argument against adopting the
metric system is that it is already outmoded.
It is a waste of time, money, and effort to convert
to metric because the system is antiquated and will be
chucked out anyway.

Many physicists already use the system of natural units
or Planck units for basic work. Because it make the
most widely used and fundamental conversion factors
take on simple values, like one.

A human-scale version of the natural units, using
traditional-sized power-of-ten scaling of the natural
units, is available. It makes the speed of light come
out to be exactly one billion instead of (as in the metric
case) 299 792 458. And so on for a whole bunch of fundamental
constants. Eventually physicists and engineers will want to
adopt some version (probably humanly-scaled) of Planck units,
so why bother with metric.

Metric system was developed around 1790. Very clumsy. Based
on ignorance of the fundamental physical constants like
Planck's constant and the constant of gravitation and the
Boltzmann temperature coefficient k, etc etc.

ANYWAY THAT IS THE ARGUMENT

Plus we have to keep the mile because it is only half a percent
different from a power-of-ten multiple of Planck length!!!!!


I would like to hear from you,

Leonard Cottrell

What a lovely piece of information - I knew that there was a gap in metric propagandists' arguments that the world of science was entirely metric (they also say that only Britian and the USA aren't metric, forgetting that so many countries may not use miles, but certainly use feet and inches, pounds, acres...) Thanks for helping us to strike down our opponents' arguments - they'll hate us now. Who exactly was Planck? Are there any other areas of the scientific community that you're familiar with, using traditional units rather than dateless, cultureless and artificial units?

Max Planck, a German physicist around the turn of the century, associated with quantum physics. In particular, the idea that electromagnetic radiation (X-rays, UV, visible light, radio, etc.) comes in little packets called quanta, as opposed to there being a continuous flow of such energy.

There is a constant named after him that shows up basically everywhere in sub-atomic physics. If we do have to change units (and that's a big if), then something based on such a universal constant (but scaled to our level) sounds like a much better basis than some arbitrary decisions of 200 years ago.

I hope that this little blurb about Max Planck is helpful. Look him up in Google or, off-line, in any encyclopedia.

Joseph Moore

Thanks to both (Frederick Rodriguez, Joseph Moore) for your response on this topic. In fact "chucked" probably is too optimistic but I do think the SI is in for some critique and revision.

What Frederick Rodriguez says about people equating Science with the metric system really rings a bell. It is like the White (laboratory) Coat--a symbol to revere. You aren't a scientist unless you wear a white coat and use the metric system.

Unfortunately, I think, the Planck or natural system of units is not only the wrong scale for everyday use
(the quantities are too extreme, like the speed of light) but also it is only used by tiny (but significant) minorities of scientists. The natural units are, as far as I know, only used by cosmologists and by theorists trying to develop a comprehensive understanding of matter and its forces.

One way to find out more is to put "Planck length" into Google, the search engine. A number of sites and articles by mainstream physicists come up.

The hopeful thing, I believe, is that those who find metric units too clumsy and have taken to using Planck units are an influential vanguard trying to explain the most basic things in nature. So although they seem like a small esoteric bunch now their activities could trigger a major shift.

By a curious coincidence (which I have never seen discussed) the Planck length, the unit of length built into nature, is very close to being a power-of-ten fraction of a mile! It is always described metrically as 1.6 x 10^-35 meters (or 1.616 to be more precise)
which means that the mile we use in both US and Britain is less than half a percent off from being 10-to-the-38th times nature's length unit. To a proper theoretical physicist I suppose this is a perfectly meaningless bit of trivia but to me it seems curious that the Romans measured distances all over Europe and the Mediterranean world in what was essentially a decimal multiple of Planck length, now used by "string theorists" to describe the tiniest imaginable bits of matter.

Anyway, Joseph Moore's concise and factual sketch of Planck is just right. Planck described his units (and gave values for them very close to the ones in use today) in 1899 in a paper to the Prussian Academy concerning heat radiation. From what he says about them you get the idea he thinks they are considerably more scientific than metric units, but they didn't catch on right away and in fact only began to take over in basic physics research comparatively recently.
If you want I can get a reference to Planck's paper
and a brief quote or two knocking the metric system by implication.

Sorry if this post is a bit wordy. I'll try to boil it down another time.

Can anyone help with a rough estimate of how many people already use Planck units in their research or teaching?

It must be "many" in the sense of hundreds but percentage-wise still a very small fraction of physics and astronomy.

Anyone who teaches an introductory course in astronomy probably uses Planck units at some point because those are the terms in which the early universe is described (planck length, planck temperature, planck density, planck energy, planck interval of time etc.) but that is only one section in a general course of astronomy.

June 2001 issue of the journal Physics Today has a discussion of the Planck scale by the MIT theoretical physicist Frank Wilszek.

http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-54/iss-6/p12.html

His discussion tries to get at the causes of why the natural units seem to be natural--why the Planck scale seems to be built in to the universe. No one, I think, really understands why. He makes it clear that his explanation is tentative and speculative. The article is hard to read, but mercifully short and at least he makes a valliant effort to be understandable.

If anyone knows any better discussion of Planck quantities on the web please post the URL for us. I will keep an eye out.

Well, it seems this new system of 'natural' units will make both metric *AND* imperial measures redundant.

Oh, by the way, the answer to my title question =
2 short plancks.

The planck mile and the imperial mile are less than half a percent different.

The fact that the "natural" unit of length is a decimal fraction of the mile will probably contribute to the long-term endurance of the mile.

BTW does anybody know of the Irish scientist George Johnstone Stoney who seems to have come across a system of units very much like the planck ones back around 1875 some 25 years before Planck did? Stoney
presented his discovery in Belfast to the British Association in a paper called "On the Physical Units of Nature".

The "natural" units have been around a long time and the recognition of them as such has so far done nothing but grow.

The internet seems to be helping this. Try "planck length" or "planck mass" in a search engine like Google.

Who says metric measurements are “modern”? Folks, you need a rule that new threads should be genuinely new, otherwise your ranting retarded runt in residence will just keep bolting for a new one every time the questions get too awkward. He’s no intention of answering them, even the ones he understands. That kind of psychopathic second-rater thinks leading you along proves some big, hairy point already. He’ll never DO anything the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t do and where’s the intelligence in that? You shouldn’t have to repeat yourselves just because that’s all he knows: it says “Discussion Forum” not “Eric Amin Against The World Blogspot”.

Was it the Joho’s who taught you the trick, eric? Don’t tell me they won you for Jesus too. Or did you think you could evade your exposure as a small time pervert on the ‘Homo Sapiens’ thread?

You are truly pathetic, I do actually feel sorry for you.

Dour words from the man in the chastity belt.

"You are truly pathetic, I do actually feel sorry for you."

Are you blind to the knowledge that that is what most of us think of you, eric?

Why does the truth hurt you so much?

If you are going to make a statement, stick with it and argue it! Stop descending into the stupid stuff and shifting on to new areas. Folks - have a look at some older posts to recognise what CC is talking about.

Also lies are a bad idea - you have to continually remember them to get away with them. Which reminds me - how is your lawyer relative from America? Did he manage to collate that poll of how Australians think about measurement systems?

Now realise the irony in your last post on this particular thread - you're in losing territory (again).