On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Paul Trusten wrote:
> I was once castigated on the newsgroup for stopping to explain the
> weight/mass thing,
Who did that? The distinction in *required* in SI?
> so since then I use the terms interchangeably.
That is a common error by many who have not mastered SI, but
is not acceptable in this USMA Forum (in my opinion), and I often prod
those in this Forum who use the terms as synonyms (especially if they
seem to understand that w = m.g as well as f = m.a).
Make the distinction and I'll come to your defense if you are
castigated again for using correct SI.
>
> ... no newtons. Just kilograms. But all of that has to be manually
> converted from feet and inches, and pounds.
Software for data entry can do that conversion with little
human effort once the software is installed.
> We do not document BMI routinely, but the software does calculate and
> document body surface area in square meters, since some drugs are dosed
> per square meter of body surface area.
How is area obtained. Are head, chest, waist, and hip
measurements required in your hospital practice as well as height?
Area calculations are much more complicated than BMI. Can you
persuade your programmer to add BMI?
> Oddly, the height is quoted in centimeters, not in meters.
An easy example of BMI is a husky well conditioned athlete of
100 kg mass, and 2 m height. His BMI would be 100 kg/4 m2 = 25 km/m2.
Note that the 4 m2 is height squared, *not* the athlete's surface area.
Gene.
