What units do you choose when you are writing travel books and other popular non-fiction for English speakers, wherever they might be found? (Article written by a reader of Bill Bryson’s books) (more…)
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Spare a thought for any would-be Brysons out there
Sunday, February 21st, 2010The English language – not to be taken for granted
Monday, April 27th, 2009Martin Vlietstra suggests a possible threat to our prosperity resulting from our resistance to change.
Update on the fires in Australia
Friday, March 6th, 2009Our correspondent down-under brings us up-to-date on the recent catastrophic fires in the state of Victoria. Pat Naughtin wrote on 5 March:
‘User-Friendly’ metric
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009One of our readers, John Frewen-Lord, asks why popular resistance to the simplicity of metric measures is now limited to a few English-speaking countries. With change in the air, he makes a few suggestions to help the stalled metric changeovers. If you are a Metric ‘Purist’, turn away now…
Our Christmas Cracker
Friday, December 19th, 2008The traditional Christmas cracker usually contains a joke, a paper hat and a toy, and goes off with a bang. Metric Views, in its cracker, has an anecdote about a Christmas Fair, links to two radio programmes, and a video with some knockabout fun.
Will science training for MPs help?
Sunday, December 7th, 2008A report in the Times that new MPs are to get some scientific training poses the question: will this help them to understand why we need to scrap non-scientific imperial units and embrace the modern metric system? (Article based on a draft by Martin Vlietstra)
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End Britain’s Great Imperial Rip-Off
Saturday, November 1st, 2008In these uncertain times, the spending power of the pound in our pockets seems to be decreasing by the day, making it high time, in my view, to end the Great Imperial Rip-Off, and save British consumers from the cost of maintaining imperial weights and measures. (Article contributed by Tony)
Are our schools entrenching the very British mess?
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008A recent incident caused me to wonder whether our schools, far from helping to resolve the UK’s two systems muddle, are actually consolidating and perpetuating it.
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Britain from Above
Friday, August 15th, 2008A fascinating new series from the BBC comes up to expectations. (Article contributed by Derek Pollard). (more…)
Metric, a truly natural system
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008At the time of writing NASA scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of soil sampling from their latest Martian probe Phoenix. Crucial to that experiment is confirmation of the presence of water. That precious substance essential to all life both here on Earth and maybe elsewhere. It also plays a big part in shaping the world geologically and meteorologically both here and possibly on Mars. What more natural a substance to choose for defining a unit of mass as was the case originally with the metric system.