Word: metrication
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have to wait until the new prosperity trickles down to them before they can afford to buy much of it. For the first time since it won independence from Britain three decades ago, India last year made no new deals for imported foodstuffs. A record harvest of 118 million metric tons of food grains -mainly wheat and rice-has overflowed government granaries and is piled in the fields in polyethylene bags...
Within the next decade, Americans will be learning a new language in their kitchens, factories, automobiles and local bars. The metric system of weights and measures, already used in nearly every other country around the world, is being slowly adopted in the U.S. Although the switch is voluntary, Congress passed a law in December 1975 that encourages all Government agencies to change to metrics over the next few years. Since liquor, food, drugs, the interstate highway system and weather forecasts are regulated by the Federal Government, few areas of everyday life will remain untouched by the conversion...
Beginning in this week's issue, TIME will try to help its readers learn the new metric language. All articles in the Science and Medicine sections will include measurements in both the International System (metric) and in standard English equivalents...
There remain nagging problems at home. Despite what appears to be a record grain crop in 1976 (about 223 million metric tons), Brezhnev was forced to announce this fall that he intends to plow $228 billion more into the farm sector in the next five years, acknowledging that this would crimp other sectors of the economy. He attacked shortcomings in efficiency and quality, and the "puny, partial improvements" in production of consumer goods, but offered little hope for improvement...
Grain Debt. The biggest borrowers are the Soviet Union ($15 billion) and Poland ($9 billion). The Russians have used the money not only to buy technology but to pay for the nearly 18 million metric tons of grain imported from the U.S. in the past two years. Poland, with the second largest population in Eastern Europe, has had the most ambitious industrialization program. Hungary too is an important debtor relative to its size. It has borrowed $3.5 billion in the West, or almost $320 for each of its 11 million people...