“What will be the effect on all of us when we must deal with the consequences of physicians, airplane designers, or architects who were indoctrinated in school with hostility to mathematical precision?” This question was raised recently by U.S. Civil Rights Commission member Russell G. Redenbaugh, who was concerned about subordination of mathematical rigor to a predetermined social agenda.
Fortunately, there were no astronauts on board the NASA Mars probe that crashed last year because engineers failed to convert U.S. and metric units.