[speaker001:] sure okay Brian I going to press number one and we'll go
[speaker002:] okay
[speaker001:] hey um uh Ronnie I think my first introduction to the metric system was in physics in college and I think prior to that I didn't even realize that another system existed uh but it makes so darn much sense to me over the English system I I I have a hard time understanding why people don't take to it
[speaker002:] is it well um yeah I'd I agree with the the ease in the use of it and uh the it certainly it's so much easier to do your do computations calculations to measure things with it to in every every aspect of it is simpler except there is one big stumbling block in it and in the United States and that is all of the tool and die equipment in this country that has been here for the last hundred years is in the English system
[speaker001:] yeah I understand
[speaker002:] and tool and die equipment doesn't wear out too often
[speaker001:] no no
[speaker002:] so I think that's the the one place where uh they will have a hard time uh getting people to change
[speaker001:] yeah and I noticed that too in uh in uh uh metal stamp metal parts that we buy we at one time went back through and dual dual dimensioned them all
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh you know it's uh it's easy to put down point O O one inches or one mil uh it's kind of difficult to have its metric equivalent
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] uh in in terms of the numbers that you've got to carry around I guess one of the things I I think metrically I've got a uh a and it drives my wife crazy you know she'll say how far is it from here to somewhere she wants to go and I'll say oh about eight kilometers
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and she'll look at me and give me this crazy look but my uh my my uh hobby is distance running
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and basically all of the races are five K ten K fifteen K nobody runs in terms of miles anymore
[speaker002:] sure
[speaker001:] uh and I guess that's got me thinking metrically also uh uh we have lived overseas From nineteen eighty one to eighty four we lived Quadalampor Malaysia
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and for in eighty five six and seven we lived in Baggio City in the Philippines
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I guess you just get used to seeing distances beside the road marked metrically
[speaker002:] exactly
[speaker001:] and ultimately at some point you know it doesn't happen overnight but at some point your frame of reference is metric at least in terms of distances
[speaker002:] right right I uh lived in Brazil for four years from when I was seven to eleven years old and so by the time I got into high school and took some physics there and then into college um where I was a physics major in college so I'm more than uh familiar with the metric system
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] and uh but I think that initial period you know from way made it familiar for me so I wasn't afraid of the metric system and and and I knew how much it made sense and how much easier it was to do things that way so I I it's too bad that more Americans can't don't have the opportunity to to really use it to to get to a point where it it's something other than something that causes them fear and confusion because if you just the initial in the initial stages of anything no matter even if it is something that ultimately will be simpler are going to be confusing
[speaker001:] oh yes yes
[speaker002:] and it's getting over that hurdle that will
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] finally get us into it if we ever get into it
[speaker001:] yeah I I I don't think it's going to happen in in in our lifetime at least not in mine uh I think uh there's a gigantic psychological barrier which may be a worse barrier than the old tool and die uh dimension in English
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] uh and I think that the uh the ultimate solution will be to start introducing it uh in at at the introduction to school
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] and uh hang on a sec Brian I got to get rid of that caller
[speaker002:] okay
[speaker001:] are you there
[speaker002:] yep
[speaker001:] okay I think the uh uh the solution is to start it at the earliest uh stages of schooling and uh uh make that the system to which kindergartners and first graders are introduced
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] uh the drawback to that is I don't think we have any teachers in our other than physics teachers in our school system that are comfortable with it
[speaker002:] right right that may be true also I don't know chemists seem to
[speaker001:] and chemists that's what I got my first degree in chemistry too and I and you know we don't talk in quarts and pints we talk in liters and milliliters
[speaker002:] it okay no I mean can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to try to do calculations I mean it boggles the mind to try to think to do all the chemistry or physics in the English system at this point although gosh all those
[speaker001:] oh yeah I I I don't think we could even think English and I'm just thinking now in our business you know we make we make chips and uh we assemble them though
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it's interesting we are uh uh basically talking well we talk about a package size yeah we talk about it in terms of uh uh six hundred mils or six tenths of an inch I guess we do that but on the other hand we talk about the force that it takes uh to move a die out of a package in other words how much uh uh how how well do we have the die uh inhering to the to the base
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and we talk about that in terms of kilograms so we use it a lot we talk about uh gold ball bonds bond strength we talk about that in terms of grams or in terms of kilograms to push the uh push the ball off its substrate so we we tend to have a mixed bag in new concepts uh that have come along with the electronic age I think just sort of get introduced metrically so that's the way we do it
[speaker002:] right it's interesting in the in though the work I'm doing I'm uh
[speaker001:] uh
[speaker002:] uh the kind of things I do is manage uh research and development contracts and we do everything from basic research all the way through uh we have a couple of systems that are actually um places where they're producing a product and what I've noticed is that the places where they're kind of doing fuzzy thinking and uh doing the initial uh development of an idea use the metric system and they talk in terms of metric uh uh units in turn around the people however that have the engineers that are actually producing a product do most of their carry conduct most of their discussion in terms of the English units which I I find
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] it's interesting that it's like the guys that are still doing the work that are actually making the stuff are using the English system but the ones that come up with the they're doing these theoretical analysis and the number crunching um are doing it in terms of the metric system I I it kind of seems strange but
[speaker001:] right you you mentioned just a side light here you mentioned you lived in Brazil whereabouts
[speaker002:] and Sao Paulo
[speaker001:] oh Sao Paulo our our plant there is in Cantinas
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I'm there several times a year
[speaker002:] no kidding uh
[speaker001:] and uh of course we fly into Sao Paulo and and drive on to uh uh Cantinas
[speaker002:] and do you fly into Camgonias or the other one down there down so uth
[speaker001:] uh I use the other one
[speaker002:] yeah okay the international airport
[speaker001:] I can't think the name of it yeah the international airport because I I generally fly in from uh well the last two times I've come in from Mexico City via Menaus
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh before that though it's uh it's uh Miami uh Rio De Janeiro Sao Paulo uh type flight
[speaker002:] sure sure
[speaker001:] and uh I just love it there I I absolutely uh uh uh love the I look forward to the times I go down there where did you get your from where did you get your physics degree
[speaker002:] uh the Air Force Academy uh I'm one of those
[speaker001:] oh okay okay yeah you like Colorado are are you a civilian employee about now or or military
[speaker002:] yeah no no I'm I'm still in the I'm still a second lieutenant I just graduated in eighty nine
[speaker001:] oh okay oh okay okay you're you're you you're a bit younger than I thought uh back to the the metric system
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] I've got a uh an automobile an eighty six Buick Skylark that's got an odometer that's a digital odometer in both units in other words I can push a button and it's in metric and I can push a button and it's in English
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I I keep it in the metric uh all the all the time and we were taking another couple to a ball game last summer
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it was uh floating up there around a a a hundred a hundred which is about is about sixty two miles an hour and it was floating up there about a hundred and the wife of the couple looked at me she said my God slow down I didn't realize you were going this fast
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] and so we we you know we have a hard time getting people getting uh uh getting them to think metrically but
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] it's going to be a big psychological barrier and I don't think that we can educate kids all the way to their adulthood and then introduce it to them
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] because if we if we keep doing that it's it's not going to work
[speaker002:] oh yeah
[speaker001:] but but but interestingly enough we think it makes sense to to think metrically with our money
[speaker002:] oh yeah
[speaker001:] you know ten cents makes a dime ten dimes makes a dollar uh which is basically thinking metrically
[speaker002:] right well the whole
[speaker001:] but why twelve inches make a feet a foot and three feet make a yard I you know
[speaker002:] yeah I don't or the whole number system is digital so how can you have uh or it's it's base ten rather and so how can you have
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] how can you have these uh strange I I