[speaker001:] For N I S T, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
[speaker002:] Oh, okay, so it's right up your alley, then.
[speaker001:] I suppose so. Let me push the button.
[speaker002:] All right.
[speaker001:] [Beep] Okay, uh, I guess I'm supposed to be all for switching to the metric system, but, uh, I sense that it's not going to happen anytime soon.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I don't think it's going to happen either, but I wish it were because I'm a, I got my bachelor's in mechanical engineering.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] I'm at grad school now in acoustics and all we do is metric stuff.
[speaker001:] You're now in what?
[speaker002:] Acoustics.
[speaker001:] Acoustics, uh.
[speaker002:] Yeah, so everything's metric and then you go to read some order book or something and it's all confusing so I don't understand as much, so I think we should get one adopted permanently.
[speaker001:] Well, I guess that is the policy, but it's been the policy for a long time and nothing ever happens. Uh, I suppose things, some things well happen slowly simply by having it taught in the schools more to the extent that that's happening, having a new generation come up that's more used to it.
[speaker002:] Yeah, a lot of industry out there is doing metric stuff because they have to.
[speaker001:] They have to for international trade.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] But, I g-, guess it's, it's easier to switch back and forth than it used to be, uh, be-, be-, because of, of, uh, of computers coming into everything.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. Yeah, I don't think switching back and forth is that big a deal. I think people need to understand more like what a meter is, instead of how many feet in a meter or something. Just get used to using all the terms. Because someone says a kilogram, no one knows what that is.
[speaker001:] Everyone wants a, wants a conversion of that before kind of recognizing it as a, as, as, as, as a concept to hold in mind.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Uh, I, I, I don't see that, it, it, it can change it very quickly. I mean we're not the kind of society that, that, uh, that something can be posed upon, uh, by government will.
[speaker002:] Yeah, no one seems to be adopting it. Metric system, no one's very, uh, no one wants it at all seems like.
[speaker001:] Uh, the, the, the public is just very conservative that way in refusing to change measurement systems, uh, money, dollar, coins, anything like that.
[speaker002:] Yeah [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] And, and, and it [breathing], it obviously makes no sense that we're practically alone in the world in, in using the old system.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I, it's pretty tough when you get everything confused, though. I think two systems is worse than one, though [LAUGHTER]. Because, I know, we do a lot of problems and things and they're half english and half metric and [NOISE] you, you make more mistakes doing all the conversions than you would doing the problems. just get one. I prefer metric, but even if it's english, they should just have one.
[speaker001:] Well, I mean, unfortunate-, I think people like you are relatively rare who are coming up against this problem every day.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Yeah [LAUGHTER], yeah, I think so. Your, your average guy jogging down the highway wants to know how many miles it is to his destination.
[speaker001:] [Lipsmack] Uh, I mean, there are things you could do. Uh, we have signs up on the N I S T campus here, speed limit twenty-five miles per hour, forty kilometers per hour.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Uh, but that hasn't been adopted very widely.
[speaker002:] Yeah, they have some of those in Ohio. There's this one sign's kind of funny. It says, uh, metric signs next hundred miles.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] [Lipsmack] But, I mean, and no one will, will go a step further to remove the english signs.
[speaker002:] Yeah, that would force everybody to use it. Or to quit selling tape measures in inches.
[speaker001:] Uh, yeah, or, you have highway signs saying speed limit, uh, eighty, eighty-five, whatever would be the appropriate number.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I guess a hundred is sixty-two.
[speaker001:] Hundred car is going sixty-two, yeah, so it would be more like, uh, like ninety I guess, car is going fifty-five. Uh, you suddenly have a [LAUGHTER] have a even worse problem with speeding than we do now.
[speaker002:] Yeah, you have a bunch of people trying to do ninety [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Do, do, do you know, where you are, do the schools emphasize the metric system?
[speaker002:] Yeah, in the engineering they all do pretty much.
[speaker001:] No, I, I, I meant, I meant down, like, in the elementary schools.
[speaker002:] Oh, in the elementary schools. I don't know. I wouldn't think so. I remember
[speaker001:] I mean, I think,
[speaker002:] a ways back we did like conversions, but we never actually went out and measured anything or did anything on one system.
[speaker001:] Yeah, I mean, I think my children learned the metric system, but it doesn't get, get emphasized over the other.
[speaker002:] Yeah, they learn how many centimeters are in an inch and that's about it.