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The Worth of Measure

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Impossible_Box_No_Science

By The Metric Maven

Fourth Anniversary Edition

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water

— Benjamin Franklin

In the Winter of 2014 the “Polar Vortex” event brought marrow chilling cold to my father’s town. For months the water pipes which fed his house were frozen, and he had to fill large containers of water each day for household needs. There was some irony in the fact that new water meters had been installed not long before, and my father noticed a measurable change in his usage and water bill. The water company’s explanation was that these new water meters are much more accurate than the old ones and so his bill reflected a more accurate quantity of water. It would be hard to verify this assertion and life went on.

This interaction between water user and municipal water supplier is not new. L. Sprauge de Camp in his excellent book The Ancient Engineers relates a similar situation in ancient Rome (units converted to metric):

The unit used in measuring water was a calix or standard nozzle. The standard calix was the quinaria, a length of bronze pipe 1 1/4 digits (= 18.5 mm) in diameter and 12 digits (= 222 mm) long, connecting the distributing tank to the user’s pipeline.

Users of larger calices were charged in a rough proportion to the cross-sectional area of their nozzles, as nearly as the Romans could calculate these areas with their awkward system of numerals. These charges were made on the assumption that doubling the cross-sectional area would double the flow, when in fact it would more than double it.

The Romans also knew that the flow of water through an orifice is greater if the the hydraulic head or water pressure is higher. But they did not know how much greater. So, not having water meters, they could not adjust their charges accordingly.

***

Still, for want of effective water meters, this system of measuring water supply long continued in use; it was employed in Paris as late as the 1850s. When  large discrepancies appeared in Frontinus‘ figures, he thought that these were due entirely to theft of water and leakage. In fact, however, they were also due to his crude methods of reckoning.

A modern person might wince when thinking about doing calculations using Roman numerals, or, considering the ubiquity of electronic calculators (physical or computer simulated) doing the calculation by hand with Hindu-Arabic numbers. An expression in modern Hindu-Arabic numerals is easily comprehended, whereas Roman numerals require some manipulation. For instance Super Bowl XLIX is what? Why Super Bowl 49 of course!  How about a simple subtraction: MMMMMMMMMMMMCCCXLV – MMCCCXLV = ? Perhaps it might be easier in Hindu-Arabic: 12345 – 2345 = ?  Yes it’s 10 000.

Modern persons immediately note, that the Romans poor numerical system was further confounded with poor measurement techniques. It is often stated that the world around us is mathematical, but this statement without qualification is not true. We cannot make the claim that the world is mathematical, without an idea that is generally invisible to the psyche. Worse yet, when it does make its way into the minds of engineers and scientists, it is often a concept which is thought to be of minimal importance. This attitude was brought into high relief when I read this quotation in Basic Concepts of Measurement by Brian Ellis:

Measurement is the link between mathematics and science. The nature of measurement should therefore be a central concern of the philosophy of science. Yet, strangely, it has attracted little attention. If it is discussed at all in works on the philosophy of science, it is usually dismissed in a fairly short and standard chapter.

Without the intermediary of measurement between our observed world and mathematics, science and engineering as we know them would not be so obviously mathematical. Pat Naughtin realized this. It was obvious to him, but it was difficult for Naughtin to conceive that it was not obvious to the greater technical community in the US:

During the 2008 election campaign in the USA, ‘Scientists and Engineers for America and fifteen other science organizations‘ united to ask the congressional candidates seven questions in preparation for the Federal elections in the USA.
                                                               ***
The highly original, smart, clever, and creative scientists and engineers who wrote the seven questions had not begun to address the most basic issue in science–how to measure things. They simply didn’t seem to see that measurement was at all important to their nation.

One might ask “what would the world be like if measured quantities and mathematical quantities had no relationship?” I can safely say that engineering and science as we know it would not exist. We would be no better off than the Romans—at best. We might desire the existence of a  computational relationship between the size of a pipe and its flow rate, but if we lived in a world where our mathematics and measures could not be related, we would be left to rely only on our perceptions of large and small, hot and cold, heavy and light. We would know the worth of measurements, if they were suddenly not mathematically expressible. This quantitative absence would leave us intellectually naked and left without recourse to deal with the vicissitudes of nature. Before mathematics was combined with measurement through quantitative experimentation, the entire world was filled with unexplained mysterious forces. To deal with this un-quantified world, we would instead call upon supernatural agency and sympathetic magic. Lord Kelvin clearly understood this when he stated:

When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge but you have scarcely progressed in your thoughts to the stage of science whatever the matter may be.

People often understand this at an intuitive level when discussing research. The quantification of physical properties like mass, energy, volume and so on are all fixed. When measured quantities are mathematically expressed, these relationships can often be verified to the limits of our measurement capability. When we attempt to relate sociological quantities like happiness, sadness and anger in mathematical form we often feel the reluctance that Lord Kelvin did. How could we possibly measure these quantities? The devil is in the measurements, and without repeatable and exacting measurements, which are also mathematically expressible, what we are doing just does not seem like science and in fact is not.

When I insist on the importance of the metric system, and its clearest use, I’ve often been dismissed by other engineers and scientists. In some cases a visceral ejaculation of impatient prose follows that claims: “it doesn’t matter what measurement units one uses.” Sometimes this is followed with a dismissive hand gesture. The analogy of computation with Roman numerals versus Hindu-Arabic numerals is brushed aside as trivial and irrelevant. The metric system was developed, from its inception, to be the easiest  and clearest measurement system for relating mathematics to definite physical quantities, which is the very definition of “hard” science. There is often an insinuation that people who can “master” more than one measurement system are somehow intellectually superior to those who “cannot.” I had a chemistry instructor in my Fundamentals of Engineering review course say this during one class: “American engineers and scientists are better than the rest of the world because we understand two systems.” This proliferation of measurements does not make us “better” it makes us slaves to thoughtless tradition, similar to the tradition of Roman numerals. It took over 1000 years for humanity to wean itself from them.

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) gave a fascinating public lecture called The Chemical History of a Candle. This lecture was published in 1861 and it is a very interesting read. When he was investigating the constituents of water in this lecture, Faraday offered this table:

Faraday_Table

It is hard to image that this switching of units demonstrates the superiority of using multiple units when looking for correlation. This is the pre-metric world and it is not insight-friendly. I would convert the table to metric, but I’m not sure which pint or which ounce or which grains are used for certain.

It has struck me as a sad commentary that modern public figures who aspire to be scientific ambassadors and popularizers, have such a trivializing attitude toward the metric system. Neil deGrasse Tyson, when asked by a Canadian to explain why he did not use metric in Nova Science Now argued that if you understood the metric system, perhaps you did not need to watch the show! “I’m really just trying to reach the people that need the science.” This statement indicates the metric system is difficult, when in fact it is designed for elegance and simplicity. When the metric system is used in thousands (triads), the gram, milliliter and millimeter are all integers for expressing everyday quantities. deGrasse Tyson reinforces the corrosive American prejudice that “metric is for scientists and engineers” and regular folk don’t need to worry their pretty little heads with that complicated stuff. He later trivializes the audience member’s request for metric by stating: “it does put a greater burden on you, the Canadian to adapt to our mysterious ways in America.” Yes, they are mysterious, and not really funny.

Bill Nye explains the metric system by offering up both centimeters and millimeters and the idea that the metric system is only “better by ten” instead of better by one-thousand. No hectometers or decameters or decimeters are offered to demonstrate the better by ten assertion.

Neil deGrassee-Tyson and Bill Nye do excellent work explaining and defending science. They, like most engineers and scientists seem to have given the metric system very little thought or investigation. Is this their fault? I would argue that it is probably not. This metric ignorance is a systemic problem within our educational institutions from kindergarten through graduate school. I only recall a quick statement by a professor, stating that we will be using the metric system in our science and engineering courses, and then, without any reflection or background, we were often introduced to physics and engineering problems with both Ye Olde English, and metric, and metric was used without context. One way that scientists often trivialize metric is by using scientific notation and not bothering with metric prefixes at the end of their computation.

Our modern scientific world as we know it would not exist if measurements could not be made and then related to mathematics. The late Pat Naughtin seemed absolutely baffled when he could not get US engineers and scientists to make the adoption of the metric system in the US an intellectual priority. It is generally the examination of basic assumptions that propels engineering and science forward, but often it is the basics that are assumed and ignored. This lack of interest in the metric system by those who would communicate science to the public, and their indulgence of tradition over clarity, does not serve the public well, or demonstrate a deep understanding of science.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

USMA — 100 Years Part III

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Those Who Don’t Learn From History….

By The Metric Maven

The 21st century arrived on January 1st 2001, and after this temporal milestone passed, NASA looked into their lack of metric practice. The May-June issue of Metric Today quotes an Inspector General report: “NASA’s use of the metric system varies from program to program and from Center to Center.” The article noted that “NASA does not give program/project managers very much guidance for using the metric system.” If there was ever a more perfect example of the importance and need for a measurements coordinator position, with actual authority, I cannot think of one. Pat Naughtin emphasized the need for measurements coordinators, and I’ve written about my own experience with uncoordinated practice in industry.

The eight recommendations from the Inspector General to NASA are just more pablum which will change nothing. Number 6 begins: “NASA should show caution in granting SI waivers to entire programs. Use of SI within a `waivered` project project should be permitted, when appropriate.” SI should be “permitted”? Here is what should have been recommended: 1. NASA must have a mandatory transition to metric-only in two years from this date or face steep penalties. 2. All measurements for all projects must be approved by an office of measurement coordination and must be exclusively in metric, no exceptions, no waivers, no excuses.

Aerospace Week & Space Technology indicated that a law passed to reduce paperwork eliminated the requirement for all agencies to report metric progress. Waivers were no longer required. The magazines suggestion?—“…immediate restoration of the waiver process.” (MT May-June 2001)

The new millennium would not begin favorably for U.S. Metrication. Washington had become even more unresponsive when it concerned metric, which hardly seemed possible.

Metric and inch-pound mistakes continued to produce tragedy and loss. The July-August issue of Metric Today (MT) reported that the crash of Korean Air Cargo Flight 6316 occurred because of a metric-medieval unit confusion. The flight was to travel from Shanghai to Seoul.  The South Korea Ministry of Construction and Transportation determined that the crash was “due to a mix-up in the cockpit on whether the altitude should be measured in meters or feet. According to MT:

The accident took place soon after takeoff in Shanghai and killed 3 crew members, 5 people on the ground, and injured 40 construction personnel when it fell onto a construction site near the airport.

The summary of the report on the incident stated that a Chinese air controller directed the pilots to 1500 [assuming the pilots would know it meant 1500 meters], However, because the international aviation industry commonly measures altitude in feet, it is assumed the pilot concluded the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 was almost 1000 meters too high, so quickly moved to lower the plane. When he realized his error, it was not possible to correct the error in time, and the plane crashed.

Another metric setback occurred when Professional Engineer Thomas R. Warne, P.E. resigned his Utah DOT position, but not before announcing that Utah would revert to inch-pound medieval units for road construction in 12 months. From that point on all work will be done in Ye Olde English units. This reversal appears to have occurred throughout the nation.

The Metric Today issue of May-June 2002 had a face-lift by a graphic artist, courtesy of QSI corporation.

The subject of allowing metric-only packaging in the US continues to be discussed in Metric Today  to this day. No current pro-metric legislation is discussed, as there does not appear to be any. NIST continues to employ a metric coordinator, but their influence appears to be more ceremonial at this point than actual. A focus on metric education is a constant drum beat in Metric Today even as there is no perceptual change to metric in the US making it a virtual experience. All the measures of everyday life are given in Medieval Olde English Units. When metric dimensions do appear in MT, the centimeter pseudo-inch is utilized constantly. The world record eyebrow hair is touted as 9 centimeters (90 millimeters for those with a refined measurement sense) and belongs to Sardar Singh of Amritsar, India. If Metric Today itself has a policy concerning metric usage, the centimeter is still a sacred cow.

In the same issue (MT Sep-Oct-2003) it was noted that Pat Naughtin launched his email newsletter, Metrication Matters, on Jun 9th. Naughtin strongly argued for using millimeters as the common small metric unit. The Nov-Dec Metric Today contains a table with the prefix cluster around unity, and the same number of Medieval Olde English Units for comparison. Which only reinforces a perceived equality between the system and non-system which does not exist.

The issue of implementing a law that allows metric only labeling for goods across the country is a continuing topic. Metric changes in other countries are highlighted. In August of 2004 the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) decided to revert back to US units over a two year period.

Professional Engineer Robert Bullard P.E. attempted to begin metric construction in Florida. The local government officials refused to go along with metric drawings. I’ve written about his problems here, and in the end, he’s been compelled by “market forces” to go back to inch-pound designs.

The US hard metric conversion of masonry was overturned (MT Jan-Feb 2005):

The National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) announced in a 19 November 2004 press release that Congress has passed the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, which eliminates the requirement for hard metric concrete units in federal construction plans. The bill, expected to be signed into law by President [George W.] Bush, nixes the mandate for the use of round metric 200 x 200 x 400 mm concrete units, instead of soft-converted 203 x 203 x 406 mm units, in U.S. government construction.

The motivation for this rejection is enigmatic. The manufacturers would be putting less material into each brick, and probably charging the same amount of money.

USMA-Logo-2007

A nostalgia for the 1970s metrication period begins to seep into the pages of Metric Today. The only new recurring metric issue is the need for a new definition of the Kilogram. The biggest news is not metric legislation from within the U.S. but pressure from Japan in 2006. Japan insisted that the U.S. Government “…ensure thorough adoption of the metric system in public and private sectors of the United States.” (MT May-Jun 2006). The European Union also began to insist on the U.S. providing metric only trade goods, but nothing would come from it. Metric meetings which had been so prevalent only a couple of decades before, were extinct.

From the time she became USMA president, Lorelle Young tirelessly traveled to Washington to lobby for metrication, and is prominent in Metric Today for constantly promoting metric. Unfortunately it is a never ending task in the U.S., which has reaped only irrational political push-back. One must admire her tenacity and drive in the face of overwhelming reactionary political opposition.

The current era appears, in my view, to be a retreat to the past. In the United States, only minute islands of metric exist within a sea of ancient US measures. New York state had converted to metric for road construction, then announced it would un-convert from metric in late 2006. Metric Today has a considerable number of column-millimeters which feature metric nostalgia, but no federal bills, pro or anti-metric, grace her pages. Why? Because they don’t exist. You will have a better chance of spotting Bigfoot on the House or Senate floor than pro-metric legislation.

NASA announced that its Constellation program was to be metric, and then later retracted that assertion.

Senator Clayborn Pell would die in 2009.

In 2009, metric signs along I-19 in Arizona began to feel the pressure from anti-metric forces. The signs had been placed there in 1979 while the US Metric Board existed. The I-19 Controversy continues and does not appear resolved.

The US Senate confirmed Dr. Patrick Gallagher as Director of NIST in 2009. As longtime readers know, he was the feckless Director who, in 2013, rebuffed the We The People Petition which requested that Congress make metric the exclusive measurement system of the US.

By 2010 The Federal Highway Administration issued a new manual of standards. The 2003 edition had dual-units; the 2009 has only inch-pound.

In 2013 an isolated metric legislative apparition appeared. MT reported:

On 17 January 2013 in the state of Hawaii, Representative Karl Rhoads, who represents Hawaii’s 28th House District, introduced a bill in the state legislature that would make the metric system the official system of measurement in Hawaii by the year 2018.

Why this legislation was introduced is a mystery. It was never passed.

In 2015 Lorelle Young stepped down as President of the USMA. There were immediate changes in Metric Today. The September-October issue contains a new tagline: Advocating the completion of U.S. conversion to the metric system. Had the old tagline remained, it would have informed the reader that 2016 was the USMA’s 100th year. It is hard to see the new tagline as anything other than a denial of the obvious: essentially there has been no beginning of a metric conversion in the United States. Advocating a completion of something which has not begun seems much like advocating that Liberia complete their quest to win the Super Bowl. I’m sure there must be a football team somewhere in Liberia, which means they have begun the process.

The writing found in the November-December Metric Today belies their tagline. USMA VP Paul Trusten has this to say (pp 3-4):

Even now, I feel almost as if I am acting in secret. What began as simple public ignorance has festered into a public prejudice similar to racial prejudice. …

So, with regard to completing US metrication, we have to take what may amount to a historically unique stance as both leaders and protesters. We are NOT underdogs. We are very much a part of the “Establishment,” the people who wield technology on a daily basis.

Martin Morrison, wrote a Metric Training and Education column that month which states:

There is an advantage in having US industry and media take the lead in metric conversion. When the government does things, all the naysayers rev up their anti-metric propaganda, much of which is factually false. When industry and media use metric by their own volition, there is essentially no resistance. Americans just accept it, or don’t even notice it. It just happens. In this context, I am very happy to see the US Metric Association’s new motto: “Advocating the Completion of US Conversion to the Metric System.” That nails it!

No Metric Philosopher has ever said it better. Despite the fact that we’ve had a voluntary metrication program “in place” since at least 1866, and re-emphasized in 1921, industry and the media continue to remain hostile to metric; I don’t see letting them “take the lead” as a viable or even rational position.

A country where the new USMA motto might make sense would be the UK. England is clearly very, very much metric, and should complete their conversion as they are well on their way. In the US, the metric system is but an abstraction that is only discussed when marginal candidates for President of the US mention it as a throw-away line, well into their speech. This metric statement is then used as a quick fear-fix for our media echo-chamber and the outrage junkies that jones for it. There is no metric conversion occurring in the US and (spoiler alert) there is no Santa Claus.

There are however several policies which have been embraced by the USMA which in my opinion do not help metric promotion. They are: 1. Referring to the inch-pound system. What we have in the US is in no way a system and in no way should this mess be equated with SI. Only the metric system is an integrated measurement system. US measures are literally medieval units  2. The encouragement of centimeters 3. The promotion of the prefix cluster around unity (hecto, deci, centi, deca). The absence of an open USMA policy advocating that any new metric legislation must be mandatory and not voluntary. 4. The promotion of metric to medieval conversions as a viable path to metric in the US. 5. The implied assertion that dual-unit dimensioning or packaging is progress toward metrication.

The USMA is celebrating its 100th year of metric promotion. Its centennial. Fredrick Halsey called the original organizers in the early twentieth century and said that he and other anti-metric people in the US had killed the metric system in 1905, and would kill it again in 1921. They were successful. Halsey’s successors have continued to make certain that no metric laws of any type are passed, let alone mandatory metric laws. I wish I could celebrate the fact that the US is so metric in 2016, that the need for the USMA had long passed, and there is no need for it to continue. Congratulations are in order for the USMA’s tenacity in the most hostile anti-metric Frozen Republic on the planet Earth.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.