Despite the fact that the United States had the first decimalized currency in the world (it's not an accident that there are 10 dimes and 100 pennies in a dollar--that was the efforts of Thomas Jefferson), we lag behind almost every other country in adoption of the metric system. This project will help fund, in part, travel for on-camera interviews that will make up part of the project.

The overall goal of the project is to get discussion of metric system adoption back on the table in the United States. Currently, we're one of only three countries that don't routinly use the metric system. It's been more than 30 years since we considered metric adoption in this country and we've lost sight of the fact where this places us

I have a background in video and communications and won a national award for one of my video projects back when I worked for General Motors.

Here are a few more reasons to consider a switch:

We're wasting our time with ancient, cumbersome units that don't relate to each other (See above image) It’s easier to make conversions (You just move the decimal point right or left) Teaching two measurement systems to children is confusing It’s the language of science It’s the language of medicine Human conversion errors are inevitable (We lost a Mars orbiter that way and pharmacy mistakes are common) It’s the language of international commerce Many hobbies and sports use the metric system Its use is necessary for travel outside of the United States So we look less foolish and ignorant to the rest of the world

My blog on the subject is here.

Questions? Comments? Email me at milebehind@gmail.com.