Winona Nedab, age 13, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, for her question:

Will converting to metric be too difficult?

Not if you start in the kitchen. A sensible way to tackle any impossible problem is to sample it in small helpings. To grasp the metric system, we must get used to its meters, liters and kilos as they occur in our everyday lives. We already know how its decimal system works because we use it every time we spend a dime  ¬which is the tenth part of a dollar.

The murmurings about the metric system grow louder and, without a doubt, one of these years we shall be using it to do all our weighing and measuring. Through who knows how many generations, we have used a hodgepodge of antiquated methods to do these things. And who knows how much time we wasted on them. This far outweighs the arguments against converting to the simplified metric system.

Certainly such things as redesigning industrial equipment present big problems that will take time. But we ordinary folk can help by training ourselves to think in the metric system. Since the abrupt switch will not occur tomorrow, we can take our time and enjoy testing it in smallish samples. Cooking and sewing, walking and eating give us opportunities to get the feel of the metric system. When it arrives, we should be able to greet it as an old familiar friend.

We know, of course, that its easy decimal system is based on the meter. And, of course, it is no problem to figure its 100 centimeters and 1,000 millimeters. We can stride off 1,000 meters to cope with a kilometer. With not too much research, we can learn the relationship of the meter to the kilo and the liter    and figure their equally neat decimal fractions in weights and liquids. However, the old brain tends to get bored with rather simple paper work of this sort.

At this point, it needs to be challenged by some real life experiences. Let's switch a cup of flour and another of milk to the metric system. Then let's convert a pint of milk, a pound of butter, and a tablespoon of water. The idea is to feel how these everyday items fit into the metric system. So we need not work the translations out in fine fractions.

A cup of flour weighs about four ounces and equals approximately 115 grams. A cup of milk measures eight fluid ounces and equals about 230 milliliters. A tablespoonful  of water is five milliliters. A pint of milk is slightly more than half a liter and a pound of butter weighs slightly more than half a kilogram. If this brings on a headache, try an aspirin, which weighs about one gram.

Far more serious headaches await our industrial designers and manufacturers. Their measurements must be figured out precisely in finest fractions. All our screws, bolts and numerous more complex machine parts were made according to the old systems. Eventually they will be replaced by new metric designs. But in the meantime, our mechanical world may seem more of a hodgepodge than it was before.