Science Talk - The Metric System (My Metric Swan Song) with Randy Bancroft
When: Sat, Jan 13, 2024 at 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Where:
Secular Hub
254 Knox Ct
Denver, CO 80219
For the first Science Talk of the New Year, Randy Bancroft will be speaking on:
The Metric System - My Metric Swan Song
On a near-metric planet, is the Metric System important to the only significant holdout — the United States? Could our intransigence compromise our health care? Could it explain why our shoes don’t fit, why our manufacturers struggle in world markets, and why our utility bills give us no real idea of just how much energy we’re really using? Could we be paying a price for a hidden anti-metric bias in our lives — even in common, everyday objects? And why do American science teachers and science advocates give such short shrift to the measurement system that runs the world, improves lives, and makes science possible?
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Randy Bancroft is a Professional Engineer (P.E.), holding a BSEE from Iowa State University, and an MSEE from the University of Colorado. He is the author of Schrödinger’s Cat and the Golden Bough: Reflections on Science, Mythology, and Magic. He has also published books on microwave antenna theory and design. For more than ten years, he has produced essays on the Metric System online, as The Metric Maven, and has published three books
on metric matters:
The Dimensions of the Cosmos: Tales from 16 Metric Worlds
Death by a Thousand Cuts: a Secret History of the Metric System in the United States
and Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure.
