As said many times, metric is a language. Names of units and prefixes must
be memorized. About twenty words for the non-technical person.
That learning is the toghest problem with Americans - accepting foreign
words. "Why don't they use English, dumbos?!" I found there is little need
for the chart,
Speaking of dental floss, I was at a local CVS recently, and I noticed that
units of measurement are not even consistent within a single brand.
CVS-brand "Advanced Fiber Dental Floss" floss was sold in 50 m packs,
labeled as "50 METERS", with the metric measurement first.
CVS-brand [regular] "Den
It seems like this list goes through the same discussion every year or
two about hecto- versus kilo-, especially when used with the pascal.
You will find nothing in the Si Brochure giving the prefixes hecto-,
deka-, deci-, or centi- any lower status than the "powers of 1000" prefixes.
Let us
The pascal, kilopascal, megapascal, millipascal, etc is the obvious
multiple of pascal to anyone who appreciates the simplicity of SI. The only
reason for the hectopascal is " because it's the same [numerically] as
a millibar." It is mostly the traditional metric countries that stick
with hPa f
Australia uses the hectopascal. See
http://www.bom.gov.au/info/aneroid/aneroid.shtml
Best wishes,
Michael Glass
