On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:43 AM, bob therriault <[email protected]> wrote:
> So, 0.1 seconds * (1000 milliseconds % 1 second) would give you 100 
> milliseconds and the original seconds in the numerator and the conversion 
> seconds in the denominator cancel out leaving milliseconds (and confirming 
> that this is the result that you want).

Put differently, 1000 milli- (or 1000 milliseconds % 1 second) is
equivalent to the numerical value 1.

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 12:05 PM, R.E. Boss <[email protected]> wrote:
> Milli is a prefix which stands for %1000.

Agreed.

> So if I multiply 1 millisecond with 1000 I get (*%)1000 seconds.

I still have a problem with this notation.

1 millisecond is 0.001 seconds.

((*%) 1000) is 1000 * % 1000 so I would expect that (*%) 1000 seconds
to be 1000 seconds * % 1000 seconds - in other words, that looks to me
like a dimensionless 1.

Meanwhile, it's indeed the case that 1000 * 1 millisecond would be 1
second. Here, though we are not changing the units being used to
express the original value. Instead, we are finding a new value.

But that does not seem, to me, relevant to the original post, where
the units provided by 6!:2 are seconds and the context involved
comparing timing from 6!:2 with other times which were apparently
expressed in milliseconds.

It's the difference between "x = 1 second, what is x in milliseconds"
and "x = 1 second, how long would a thousand repetitions of x take".
Both can be valid questions, but only one seems valid in the context
of 1000 * 6!:2

> If I divide it by 1000 I get (%~%)1000 which is a micro second.
> That's what I wrote and (IMO obvious) how it should be interpreted.

It may be obvious to you, but I am having trouble fitting these
observations into the original context of this thread. That's what's
confusing me.

-- 
Raul
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