If you could go back in time, what would you do? Assume that most of the concerns about altering the time-space continuum can be ignored, and I'll trust you that you're not going to go back and do something silly like kill your parents. So, what would you change? Here's my list of causes that are clearly worthy of what would be the greatest technical achievement ever.
1. Let Ben Franklin know that it's the negative charges that move to create electric current. Basically, he had a 50/50 shot at getting this one right, and he missed. So we're stuck with a convention that electrons moving to the right create a current moving left.
2. Dear General Washington, while we're throwing off the yoke of King George, can we adopt the metric system, too? It's so much better, and the only reason not to make the switch is inertia and the high cost of making the changeover.
3. Pick a time, and time. Daylight Saving Time isn't worth the hassle of changing all the clocks twice a year. More importantly, small children don't understand time changes and concepts like planning ahead. Thus, twice a year we get a morning of chaos, and a day of crankiness from upset sleeping schedules. I don't even care that much whether we're "on" or "off" DST, just pick one and leave my clocks alone!
4. Down with wire gauges! Wires are wonderfully simple things. They have a length and a diameter. So why can't we just list them by diameter? No, instead, we have to have wire gauge which is a nearly meaningless number. Just call it a 1mm wire, or 1.5mm or 10mm or whatever size you want. The gauge is just another unnecessary measurement scale. While we're at it, we're also going to get rid of the gauge measuring system for sheets to metal. In case you're wondering, wire gauge and sheet metal gauge are the same for aluminum, but different for steel. (12 gauge steel is thicker than 12 gauge aluminum.)
4a. As a bonus, I'm going to get rid of the alternate spelling of "gage".
There you go, that's my list so far. Don't worry though. After taking care of all this stuff, I'll still have plenty of time* to go back and stop genocides and wars and stuff like that, too.
* Unlimited time, really.
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