One of the great things about *Bad Astronomy* is somewhat subtle. Bad Astronomer uses METRIC notation throughout *Bad Astronomy* (followed by English notation within parentheses)! Bravo!

I believe that American students get short-changed when they are taught science with *English* notation rather than *metric*. I understand that *metric* is supposed to be the method advocated in the United States, but where do you ever see it used (other than on speedometers in tiny letters which are so small they cannot be read without a magnifier. The English units, naturally, are big and bold on speedometers.

On standardized tests, American students are down at a level with students in undeveloped countries when it comes to mathematics and science. I blame it all on the preferential use of English over metric in American schools.

Phil: Thank you for making Metric dominant in your wonderful book. Perhaps others might take the hint.

If your lectures are at all like your writing in this book, your students are very lucky. Very lucky. All future science teachers should come into contact with your book.

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"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

Oh, that was on purpose, believe me. There is one section where I use "standard" units before metric, but now I don't remember where. It's because miles were more convenient, since I was referencing some common knowledge "fact" usually quoted in miles.

I prefer metric, though I still think in miles. It's impossible to use metric in daily life still, but I try to squeeze it in when I can. In interviews, I always try to use both.

I finished the book today. I was planning to go slowly, but I simply could not stop reading it. It is so beautifully written and full of great information. It is so much fun to read. You really know how to explain astronomy. Your students are very, very lucky.

I particularly liked things like the place where you explained about driving in rain and being unable to see the light from your headlights in front of you while at the same time being able to see a flood of light in back of you. I have often witnessed that but did not think it through well enough. There are loads of places like that in your book with many insights into causes.

So there was somebody who did not like the part about UFOs. I enjoyed that very much myself. I always remember when I was three years old and first saw the night sky. I wanted to know what everything was. My physicist father talked about *infinity* (as to the distances in the universe, which was the idea at the time) and blew my mind. Of course, ideas in astronomy change a lot. You are right about people always remembering things which fascinate them that they do not understand and about which they wonder. I was lucky to have my father there to explain it. I can remember clearly where everybody was. My younger brother was on a blanket next to my mother (and would have been running around if he had not been just recently born). My older brother was busily occupied with viewing. My father was standing next to me. It was one of the most vivid memories that I have ever had and I have always remembered it.

There are so many interesting places in your book. You have written many variations on the ideas that one does not usually find in ordinary books on the subject of astronomy. I think that my skeptics group will love it, too. That next meeting is on Monday night and I will show it around. Then I will show it around (again) at my next astronomy club meeting on the third Friday next week. And I will buy another copy because this copy is already dog-eared and full of notations.

Now, get to work on your next book. Right now. (Cracking whip...)

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"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

It could be worse. Next week could have three Mondays. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I like English measurements. It's not that I wasn't taught Metric or I don't know how to convert. I just like them the way they are.

The irony in all of this is that here in england we dont use 'english' units. We switched to metric a fair while ago. Trying to do engineering thermodynamics using an american textbook that uses 'english' units is a nightmare.

Oh and btw they are called imperial units not english......

Not meant as a rant but may well have turned into one!

Actually there are some differences between English and Imperial units, most notably with the gallon, which is much larger in Imperial units. Evidently, the "English" system of measurements is used only in the US and in any case is based on the metric system (that is, the values are defined based on the metric system).

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

The world will have the english system to kick around as long as there is soccer. I mean, football. The goals are 8 yards wide, 8 feet high--or their metric "equivalent." [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

That's 7.32 and 2.44 meters, officially.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

The official rules still include the imperial units as well. It was only a few years ago that they changed to mention metric first.

Perhaps the biggest impediment to the changeover in the USA is the popularity of American football? Ten meters would be, what, about one yard longer than ten yards?

Yes. Nine meters would be a better approximation than ten, though that would have problems, too:

"Davis gets the ball. He breaks through the line. He's in the clear. He's at the 27, the 22-1/2, the 18, the 13-1/2, the 9, the 4-1/2. He scores!"

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I had a friend in college who suggested that the best way to get the US to convert to the metric system would be to convert all the football fields to metric.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

But even if we decide on metric, there still could be controversy. Should we use cgs or SI?

I don't think that there would be any controversy at all. We would, after all, be changing over so to match the rest of the world, right?

Yeah, but in science, half the people use cgs and half use SI. Just dovetailing from the rest of the conversation.

*says nothing, but looks down smugly from the contented world of metric as a bunch of Americans try to come to terms with it...*

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Don't be too smug. This board is loaded with scientists and engineers, and we use "metric" every day.

If you want to help convert us heathen, why not set up a fund to pay for switching over all our road signs, real estate records, and measuring cups? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

OK, this is amusing . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/book...ure/index.html

It says the metric system is an error!

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

The error, that link says, was known in the 19th century.

It quotes the author: "That fiction, however, would have enormous consequences," Alder says. "If the metric system is today used by 95 percent of the people of the world, it is in no small measure due to the 'grand fiction' that the meter was based on nature. ... It would hardly have been adopted everywhere if the French had simply 'made it up.' In that sense the expedition proved to be essential to the 'selling' of the metric system, as well as for all the scientific discoveries it unexpectedly produced."

In other words, the author is trying to say that the big draw of the metric system is that the meter is one 40,000,000 of the Earth's circumference. That's h**ey. The big advantage to the metric system is it's use of the decimal system.

In Australia, we switched to metric in 1972 and have never looked back.

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Does earth plug a hole in Heaven or Heaven plug a hole in Earth? -Peter Gabriel

I agree with Grapes. In addition, he claims that because the Earth is not perfectly round, and that they had to take an average measurement for the meter, that it was an arbitrary rather than an Earth-based measurement. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img] What makes it arbitrary? They measured the Earth. They based the meter on their measurements. The averaging was necessary to make it a uniform measurement. Sounds pretty scientific to me. Besides, haven't all metric units been further refined since then to match more exacting nature-based phenomena?

As for his "hidden error" that the article fails to clarify--well, that may have been an initial negative point, but was that enough to cast a pall over the entire system? Once again, it's something that could be hammered out of the equation later as more accurate methods of surveying were developed. The beautiful simplicity and uniformity of the system itself is enough to overlook a few minor errors here and there.

To imply that the metric system would never have been accepted if it were known to be inaccurate may be true, to an extent. I don't think the brains of the day would have wanted to use something that was known to be off. But it's a far stretch to say that it never would have caught on at all. Might it not instead have driven them harder to clean up those errors rather than drop the system entirely?

This book seems to be nothing more than tilting at windmills. A lot of to-do over nothing.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere