Re:Yet another reason for the US to switch to metr (Score 1)

It's all well and good to say, "Hey, it's easier to do unit conversions within the SI system, so it must be a better system. Let's get everyone to start using it." As I see it, the problem is teaching people to think in a new system. Even in my work, I'll look at a metric drawing and think, "This ship is 30480 millimeters wide, so that's, ummm... oh yeah, 100 feet." Teaching the SI system should be treated just like teaching a foreign language in order to get to a point where you don't even need tp try to "translate" an SI measurement back into the English system.

The summer before my junior year of college, I worked for the state Department of Transportation. At the time they were putting forth a huge effort to start engineering and building new projects using SI units. It proved to be a nightmare for the engineers and designers (re-stationing the entire highway system, brand new design standards) as well as the construction inspectors, guys who had spent 30 years of their professional lives thinking of truck loads of dirt in terms of cubic yards suddenly being forced to start thinking in tonnes. Needless to say, when I went back two years later, everything had reverted back to English units.