Pat Naughtin is a world expert on the Metric System and systems of measurement and presented at TEDxMelbourne #3.
3 Responses to “Pat Naughtin’s Saving Millions with the Metric System”
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July 29, 2011
[...] on how ‘Metric Saves Millions’. It was a very interesting and enlightening presentation http://tedxmelbourne.com/pat-naughtin-metrication/ He has spoken all over the world on this topic, and particularly in the USA (where they need it [...]
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Great talk on a very important subject. I suppose that appart from the inherent simplicity of the metric system used within the building sector in Australia, the other important reason for its use within this sector is that the capacity for errors are significantly reduced. This is pretty obvious because the only measurment allowable is the millimetre. Centimetres and metres are banned, while the only measurement longer than a millimetre that is permissable is the kilometre.
Pat has got it wrong about the pendulum. A pendulum with a period of 1 second would have a length of 0.248 m. This is easily found from the equation L = gT^2/4.pi^2.
I also think it quite absurd to have a blanket ban on the centimetre; it all depends on the precision you can claim. It would be nonsense to quote, for example, your height in millimetres. His own countrymen quite sensibly use the centimetre in police stations for measuring the height of suspects. So, metric – yes; dumbing down – no!