Look what I found on the Net !

Date:2001-02-05 13:06:13 PST

WASHINGTON, DC--Despite other academic shortcomings, inner-city youths
possess a firmer grasp of the metric system than their peers in suburban and
rural areas, according to a Department Of Education study released Monday.


"While the typical teen has only a vague notion of what a kilogram is,
teens in the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago and the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles were thoroughly familiar with this unit of
metric measurement," said Ira Danielson, the researcher who spearheaded the
study. "They were able to identify a kilogram of weight by merely tossing it
back and forth in their hands."

According to Danielson, young people in America's urban centers are so
familiar with the kilogram that they have developed a system of
abbreviations for the measurement, such as "kilo" or even "ki" (pronounced
key).

"Most of the teens, even those reading at a fourth-grade level, were
familiar with the gram as a base unit that can be either compounded or
divided," Danielson said. "Finally, here's an area where at-risk urban
youths can really shine."

In addition to their expertise with grams, urban youths proved
knowledgeable about other metric units, including the millimeter, cubic
centimeter, and liter.

"They were surprisingly familiar with metric measurements in the
medical field, aware that liters of blood are used in an emergency room and
that certain medications are injected in cc's or mls," Danielson said. "They
also knew a great deal about ounces, but we preferred to focus on their
metric expertise."

Danielson said the discovery of the metric knowledge came as "a
wonderful surprise."

"A few months ago, we were conducting a study to ascertain the basic
skill level of high-school freshmen with poor attendance records--truant 14-
to 15-year-olds who hadn't set foot in a classroom in months," Danielson
said. "In the course of this study, an amazing pattern of metric expertise
emerged among these kids. Upon discovering this pocket of knowledge, we knew
we had to explore it further."

In a follow-up study titled "Metric Skills Among The Economically
Disadvantaged," Danielson and his team of researchers discovered that not
only did the youths score higher in metric knowledge than any other
demographic, but many could also distinguish among the smallest variations
in size and amount.


Above: A Presidential Award For Metric Achievement hangs in an area of
Detroit renowned for its metric use.
In one test, subjects were asked to follow a recipe for "metric-weight
chocolate-chip Cookies." Researchers found that the teens had a natural
ability to estimate measurements of sugar, flour, and baking powder without
using any measuring tools. When the use of a balance scale was required, the
teens knew exactly how to operate it.

"Y'all need 500 grams of flour," said Erick Boykins, a 16-year-old
study participant from Newark, NJ, scraping out a small pile of flour with a
razor. "That's half a kilo right there. Now the recipe says we gotta cut it
with 200 g's of sugar."

After combining all the ingredients, Boykins deftly divided the dough
into 50 lumps of cookie dough almost identical in weight.

The cookie test was cut short by the disappearance of 25 scales, but
results are still being called "conclusive."

Hoping to use the youths' metric zeal as "a springboard to further
learning," the Department Of Education has launched "Da Math Skillz"
program.

"As any good teacher knows, it's important to start with a foundation
of knowledge and build on that," Danielson said. "Our plan is to begin with
grams and millimeters, then move on to other metric units like newtons,
amperes, and candelas."

The program, however, has run into some early snags.

"The youths seem to have some large blind spots in their knowledge,"
Danielson said. "For example, they know millimeters very well and can
distinguish between something that's 9mm wide and something 7.62mm wide, but
for some reason, not one of the teens had ever heard of a hectare. And
though they know how much volume a cc represents, none knew it stood for
cubic centimeter."

Nevertheless, metric-use advocates were pleased to hear about the new
metric-education initiative.

"For some unfathomable reason, the U.S. is the only major
industrialized nation in the world not using the metric system," said Dr.
Michael Lenzi of UCLA's Center For Statistical Data. "At long last, it
appears that the metric system is being embraced by a progressive segment of
the population outside the scientific community."

Such trends, Lenzi noted, often originate in major cities before
spreading to the rest of the nation.

"While metric awareness is strongest in the cores of Chicago, Los
Angeles, and New York, data indicates that it's spreading into smaller
cities like Wichita, Portland, and Columbus, and even into the suburbs,"
Lenzi added. "That's an educational trend you've got to love."

If you ask me, the only reason "inner city" youth are more competent with the metric system is that they are more likely to be doing drugs than suburban teenagers (just compare the rate of crime). Since these drugs are often packaged in other countries, they are labelled in metric, and since they are brought in illegally there is no one to enforce labelling laws. (That explains why these kids are familiar with grams and kilograms but not with units such as hectares.) I live close to downtown LA so I can verify this personally.

Actually Conrad has come up with the theory that thick people should stick to metric for it's simplicity.

A bit like sticking to words with single syllables - that keeps life simple too!

Those of us who are intellectually richer (ie above the base level) can make our lives a bit more interesting!

Congrats Steveh for missing, once again, completely the point !

Your emphasis is completely misplaced.
But I recognise the reasons for the hastiness of your response.

Take a little time to think it thru!

Here is a listing of metric consumer products available in the US. A lot more then one would envision for a non-metric country:

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/products.htm

Here is a comment from someone who bought a drill press:

I have just started(finally!) setting up an $80 Delta drill press that I bought from Lowe's several weeks ago. (The hardest part was cleaning up my workshop enough to make room.)

I needed two wrenches to tighten the fasteners and to install the spindle handles: 12 mm and 7 mm, respectively. I checked carefully and this was not
an accidental fit. The 1/2 inch wrench provided a sloppy fit and the 12 mm wrench provided proper clearance and no more. My suspicions were confirmed
when I found, later in the documentation, advice on hardmounting the drill press to a bench. It tells me to use M8 x 1.25 x 125 mm bolts, M8 washers, M8
lock washers, and M8 x 1.25 nuts.


As you see folks, metric products do exist in the US.