[speaker001:] for NIST 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:] okay um I guess I'm supposed to be all for switching to the metric system but uh I sense that it's not gonna happen anytime soon
[speaker002:] yeah I don't think it's gonna happen either but I wish it were because I'm a I got my bachelor's in mechanical engineering I'm at grad school now in acoustics and all we do is metric stuff
[speaker001:] um-hum you're now in what
[speaker002:] acoustics
[speaker001:] acoustics ah
[speaker002:] yeah so everything's metric and then you go to read some old 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 just because they have to
[speaker001:] they have to for international trade
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but I guess guess it's it's easier to switch back and forth than it used to be uh because because because of of uh of computers coming into everything
[speaker002:] um-hum 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 put a recognizing it as a as as as as a concept to hold in mind
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] um 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 the metric system no one's very uh no one wants it at all seems like
[speaker001:] uh the the the the public is just very conservative that way in in refusing to change measurement systems uh money dollar coins anything like that
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and and it and it it obviously makes no sense that we're practically alone in the world in in using the old system
[speaker002:] yeah I don't know it's pretty tough when you get everything confused though I think two systems is worse than one though because I know we do a lot of problems and things and they're half English and half metric and you you make more mistakes doing all the conversions than you would doing the problems I think they should just get one even if it's I prefer metric but even if it's just English they should at least have one
[speaker001:] well I mean unfortunately I think people like you are relatively rare rare who are coming up against this problem everyday
[speaker002:] yeah  yeah I think so because your your average guy driving down the highway wants to know how many miles it is to his destination
[speaker001:] uh I mean there there are things you could do uh we have signs up on the NIST 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:] but uh I mean and no one will will go a step further to remove the English signs
[speaker002:] yeah that'd force everybody to use it or to quit selling tape measures in inches
[speaker001:] uh you know or I mean you have highway signs saying speed limit um eighty eighty five whatever would be the appropriate number
[speaker002:] yeah I guess a hundred's 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 have a even worse problem with speeding than we do now
[speaker002:] yeah you have a bunch of people trying to do ninety
[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 a ways back we did like conversions but we never actually went out and measured anything or did anything on one system
[speaker001:] I mean I think 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