LETTERS

摘要

I want to commend Civil Engineering for its July issue. Brett Han-sen's article in the History Lesson about the Washington Monument in particular contained a few revelations for me. But one peeve I've had for years is your policy of including metric weights and dimensions in parentheses after the English units. If there is a reason for this policy, please let the membership know. While most understand the simplicity and ease of metric, the fact remains that metrication has not caught on in this country-and we got to the moon and into space with the English system. I find the included metric measurements a complete distraction when reading an article. For example, I couldn't care less that a 3 ft by 10 in. by 18 in. stone is 1 m by 254 mm by 457 mm-as mentioned in the Washington Monument article-but if I needed to know, I'm smart enough to make the conversions.