RE: SI units! -Reply

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

>From: "Weiner, Ruth" <rfweine@sandia.gov>
>In the 1996 edition of Vesilind, Peirce, and Weiner, ENVIRONMENTAL
>ENGINEERING, we used SI units with historical units in parentheses.  We 
>will
>continue this practice in the next edition.  This is a sophomore/
>junior level engineering text.

I usually teach the rad, rem and Curie as alternative units so that our 
students have seen them - but then we just use SI. The non SI stuff is of 
course good to know if one gets that under the eyes (it does occur...). If I 
were a teacher in the U.S. I would definitely adapt to much of the units 
that are most convenient for whatever the reason - in practice it would 
probably be rems etc if outside much of the research field but I would 
definitely also bring up the SI alternatives so that students would have a 
chance to easily read journals like Radiation Research (published in the 
U.S. BTW!).

I understood that I was "swearing in some peoples' church" but I think there 
is some good sense of humor also. The perspective is history (yard: distance 
from some English King Henry's nose tip to the outstreched hand if I recall 
correctly - cubic yard = 27 cubic feet (whose foot??)). The history is 
nobody's "fault" - it is more of an explanation.

I remember from high school in Michigan when we were converting Fahrenheit 
into centigrades (well those freezing and boiling points of water were quite 
arbitrarily chosen) - one of my class mates in chemistry said something like 
"this is hard man - I am never gonna go into science - I wont need this 
....... (left out language)". The point is: There is always some pluses and 
minuses determining whether one should go into this or that.

Well - time for dinner. Bjorn, bcradsafers@hotmail.com

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