Regan Measurement
During the presidential administration of Jimmy Carter the United
States of America started to convert to the metric system as it
sole unit of measurement. Technically the United States of
America has been on the metric system for a long time since 1 inch =
2.54 centimeters exactly and the formerly called "English System" of
measurement is defined in terms of primary metric
measurements. Since the "English System" has been largely
repudiated and
abandoned by the English and since calling it the "Stupid American
Measurement System" is insulting to Americans, it is proposed
that the formerly called "English System" of weights and measures be
named after the great American president who nixed our conversion to
the metric system, Ronald Regan. A more polite way to describe
the "U.S. Customary Units" can be found the Wikpedia, the free
encyclopedia here.
Since many other things
have been named after this great American, lets name something after
him that he actually had something to do with. Ronald Regan did
not feel comfortable with the metric system, or understand it, so he
advocated keeping inchs, yards, feet, miles, and pounds. We have
already lost one spacecraft to Mars because of improper conversion form
metric units used by scientist to the "Regan Units of Measure."
We should not live in an SI, Standard International, unit of
measurement world in the United States of America. All
people should be encouraged to make as many unit conversions as
possible so they can recognize the arbitrariness of most unit of
measurement. Let Polytropic units were K=G=M=1 reign (To learn
more than you probably want to know about Polytropic units and their
conversion to other units look at the appendix in Williams, H.A.,
Tohline, J.E., Linear
and Nonlinear Dynamic Instability of Rotating Polytropes, The
Astrophysical Journal (1987) vol. 315, pp. 594--601.), or Planck
units where G=ħ=c=1 (actually these are the only units that may not be
arbitrary, but are in some sense fundamental to the way the universe is
structured. See the Wikipedia, the free Encyclopidia artilce here.) be used with abandon for convenience of calculation and may
"Regan
Units" flourish, too, so we do not have to yield to the tyranny of SI
units.
Written partially tough in check, hay that is where my tough always is,
by Dr. Harold Williams at 5:02PM on January 16, 2006.