Re: SI &c.

[paul o johnson <pojhome@FLASH.NET>]

Daniel Schroeder wrote:

> Of course, the Official SI Unit of Temperature is the kelvin (lower-case,
> please, and without "degree" in front).  I wonder if the SI zealots who
> police journals and textbooks are listening.  If so, I challenge them
> to banish all temperature measures but kelvin from their everyday
> vocabulary.

Dan's comment reminds me of one of the reasons why I'm so curmudgeonly in my
middle age. I just can't go along with a couple of the changes the boys back
in the smoke-filled room in Paris made.

One was changing the name of the system of units from Metric to SI. If this
was done solely to pacify the French, which many francophobes claim, it was a
great disservice to millions of US students who, having heard praises to the
metric system all their young lives, are told in school that it's called the
SI system even though it's still all metric. I hope my students forgive me
for leading them astray by continuing to refer to it as the metric system.

The second change was even more baffling--to change degrees Kelvin to
kelvins. Lord knows we should honor as many of the earlier greats as we can,
but why give Lord Kelvin this exclusive honor and leave Brothers Fahrenheit
and Celsius saddled with degrees? I just can't go see it.

Will my students suffer in future years if they use these outdated terms I am
teaching them? Tough.

poj