I have just sent the following inquiry to the American Astronomical Society's education offices. Jim Dear colleagues, I frequently teach astronomy labs at our college and the issue of units always comes up. I use only SI units in my physics courses and my introductory astronomy students (mostly non-science majors, by the way) always ask that we work only in SI units. These students have studied the SI in earlier school work, but know absolutely nothing of cgs units. However, much of the American astronomical material I find still uses cgs units, even though they were superceded by the SI in the early 1960s. I have checked and have found that the author guides for AAS allow these non-SI units. Yet, the IAU guidance is clear about its deprecation of cgs units in http://www.iau.org/units.html. What is the official position of the AAS regarding the use of SI units and not allowing the use of cgs units in its publications? If this position differs from the IAU's position (and the AIP's position, for that matter), when is the AAS going to align itself with the international community? Is there motion in that direction? Thank you in advance for addressing this concern of mine. regards, James R. Frysinger -- James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424 http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
