The programmes used ‘celebrity’ scientists and an inventor to introduce brief stories about the subjects – five or six British scientists and engineers from each of the past four centuries. And each celebrity did his or her own thing on units. Richard Dawkins used mostly metric, James Dyson mostly imperial, others here or there. Why?

At the end of the last programme, a voice-over from a celebrity physicist told us “You don’t have to be the cleverest kid in class or go to a posh school to become a great scientist”. So clearly an aim of the series was to attract young people into science. So why not use the same units that kids associate with science?

Perhaps no thought had been given to this, either by the producer or the presenters. Or perhaps the presenters thought that using a mixture of units would demonstrate science was linked to the world outside learning and work. Or perhaps it is scientific elitism: “Up here, we scientists use metric, but down there the rest of you know your place and use imperial”.

Personally, I feel the use of a muddle of units may have been counter-productive. The presenters included Sir David Attenborough, Prof. Stephen Hawking and Lord Robert Winston. Had they all used the measurement units that are used at school, then their example might have persuaded kids and parents that the science taught at school is the same science that had brought them fame and fortune, and might accordingly be a worthy career choice.

In this line, I would hope that the TV weather casters would say show a finger width for ~10mm, rather than saying “that’s just under half an inch”.

If people in the know are to stop using ‘customary’ units then they must have such an alternative!

Obviously …. the real metric value must be given first.

1 In a large university or laboratory a single department might be audited by another department (randomly selected) each year. This way each department becomes the examined and the examinee with obvious opportunities for pleasure, and improvement, from both sides.

2 Senior laboratories could invite SI Auditors’ from (say) NPL in the UK or NIST in the USA.

3 Even more senior laboratories (say a Physics laboratory at Oxford) might invite another Physics laboratory which they regard as inferior but almost equivalent (say a Physics laboratory at Cambridge) to be their ‘SI Auditor”.

4 Someone, say NPL, could appoint teams of Si expert auditors to attend all and every (as many as possible anyway) scientific, engineering, marketing, and sales conferences from primary school science displays to learned societies to monitor and comment on SI usage.

I suspect that the inventor of the metric system, Bishop John Wilkins, would thoroughly enjoy this sort of intellectual conflicts.

Cheers,

P.S. Perhaps this suggestion comes from my Australian background where we have an entire political party, called The Democrats, who have the publicly stated aim ‘Of keeping the bast_ards honest’.

P.P.S. A suitable date to begin your SI audit might be the date that can take the form 10-10-10.

Cheers and best wishes,

Pat Naughtin
http://www.metricationmatters.com

Scientists should at least acknowledge this and be prepared to speak up for the common sense of a compatible single system in wider society.

The upshot is that scientists and engineers should look at small things that cause problems and should ask questions about those. The government might well brush them aside, but behind the scenes they will investigate. Once such example was a question that I asked my MP about using mobile phones to call the emergency services to incidents on motorways. I had a typical piece of civil service b******t in response, but within a year or two pilot studies showed that driver location signs were a good idea and they are now on all of our motorways (and no doubt the government will claim all the credit).