Re: a few SI observations

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 08:50 AM 3/20/98 -0600, you wrote:
>4. where conversions have happened very curious things happen, e.g., when
>beverage container stds changed we went from the quart to the 0.75 liter.
>How is that for a nice round unit quantity?
>
Actually...  it was the fifth that became the 0.75 liter (usually labeled
750 ml). One peculiar quantity converted to another.

>5.  NRC had the opportunity in 1994 with the new part 20 to invoke SI.
>They caved in.  [Don't blame NIST.]
>
True enough - industry opposition kept SI out of the revised Part 20.

>It will happen.  As industry becomes more international it retools in
>metric.

Also true. The auto industry was a major opponent of metrification, but
shifted from SAE to metric on their own anyway as competition became
international.

>IMHO in the HP community the conversion would be trivial.
>
As I said earlier, the real cost isn't in my adjustment to the SI units,
it's the cost of retraining everyone onsite and rewriting every document
related to radiation protection that is the problem. It takes rather a
while to get the ideas of mrem and uCi to soak in for a lot of workers;
telling it's all going to be different now will meet with a lot of
resistance, and that means money. Sad, but true.

>I even know of one golf course with the distances (can't say yardages,
>metrages?) in meters!
>
I think that might be unconstitutional.

>Have a stimulating weekend.
>
Thank you, sir. And please, take one for yourself, too.


---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu