Chemical Education Today
Letters Let’s Not Forget the Units! I was not aware that the Metric Advance chart (from the 1920s) reproduced in the March 1999 From Past Issues column had such a long history. It was especially interesting because the U.S. Metric Association (USMA) still uses a chart like that. You can find it on our Web site at http://lamar. colostate.edu/~hillger/internat.htm. I’ve followed the metric debate in JCE from the 1970s on, but was unaware of the very interesting older items on metric that were published in the 1920s. Apparently that was a metrically active period in U.S. history. The USMA must certainly have been involved, having been established in 1916. The USMA has a long history of promoting metric and has published a newsletter since 1966. A more recent development, our Web site was established in 1996 and is becoming increasingly popular. There has always been controversy over going metric. However, there are even more reasons to go metric now. We are far more isolated as a nonmetric country than ever before. We now call the 1970s the “golden era” of metric because most former-Commonwealth English-speaking nations converted to metric: most notably Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In most of these countries the change to metric has been almost universal. Canada is held back somewhat by its proximity to the United States and the reluctance of the U.S. to change to metric more quickly. Britain has also made great strides toward metric in industrial areas but continues to use miles for road signs and pints for beer. In the 1970s the U.S. had great plans to change as well, but our leaders lacked the willingness to support the change and decided it should be entirely voluntary. The demands of international trade have caused many large companies and certain industries to change too. Other industries are not yet metric but are gradually changing. Although the seeds of change for the U.S. were planted in 1975 when the Metric Conversion Act was passed, the fruit has become more apparent in recent years. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 made the metric system the preferred system of units for the U.S. government. In 1991 an executive order was signed by then-President George Bush to further strengthen the U.S. government’s resolve to adopt metric. As a result, many agencies have taken significant steps toward metric, and this has helped lead to some changes in the private sector as well. Many of our consumer products are already measured or packaged in metric units. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) as amended in 1994 requires consumer product labels to give the contents in metric units as well as nonmetric units. The USMA maintains a table (http://lamar.colostate.edu/ ~hillger/internat.htm) listing products packaged in rounded metric sizes, usually leaving the nonmetric quantity as some unrounded value. The wide range of products confirms that we are far more metric than most people realize. Many individuals do not realize that the automotive industry has made a nearly 100% switch to metric in the past 30 years. Few if any nonmetric components exist in the design and manufacture of automobiles in the U.S and worldwide. The industry saw the need for global standardization—that is, building to metric standards. 310
More recently, federally funded building construction has taken a giant leap forward, in spite of some setbacks in federally funded highway projects after Congress removed the deadline for conversion, originally set for 1999. The computer and electronics industries are in the midst of conversion. Usually the change to metric dimensions accompanies the introduction of new components and products. Metric standards also are becoming well established in these areas. The disaster that struck the Mars Climate Orbiter in October 1999 was a big boon to the pro-metric cause. Not only NASA, but the U.S. as well, looked foolish for allowing a metric-English mix-up to cause the loss of a $125 million spacecraft. Numerous editorials and letters published at the time called for the U.S. to finish the transition to metric that was started in the 1970s. While few individuals are truly anti-metric, many more are blissfully unaware of the accelerating progress in conversion efforts. Most people will be glad once the change is accomplished and the struggle with dual units and conversion factors is over. Once familiarized with metric, the populace will never again desire nonmetric units. Future Americans will wonder why it took so long to adopt the much more sensible and logical metric units, rather than clinging to a hodgepodge of units that are used only in the U.S. It’s only a matter of time before we catch up with the rest of the world. If readers find this cause of interest, the USMA welcomes the support of other pro-metric advocates. Don Hillger NOAA/Satellite Service Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523-1375
http://www.metric.org
From Past Issues: Contests Revisited Having just read your interesting column “From Past Issues” in the November 1999 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, and specially the note on “Contests Revisited”, I wanted to find out whether there was an easier way to identify “corrosive sublimate” and “chlorazene”, and not to have to depend on the memory of a teenager’s experience or an old 1952 edition of The Merck Index. The answer is the CAS Registry File. Either name used as a search term produces a single hit each and retrieves a corresponding record: CAS Reg. No. 7487-94-7, Mercury chloride (HgCl2); CAS Reg. No. 127-65-1, Benzenesulfonamide, N-chloro-4-methyl-, sodium salt, which is a systematic CA Index name for “sodium p-toluenesulfonchloramide”. Perhaps the reference to Rike’s boyhood experience in a drugstore struck a familiar note because I too “grew up” in a pharmacy in rather forgotten days, when practically all the medications were prepared from scratch according to individually tailored physician’s prescriptions. W. V. Metanomski Chemical Abstracts Service P. O Box 3012 Columbus, OH 43210-0012
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 77 No. 3 March 2000 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
