No problem Marcus. I'm often reading things in haste as I task-switch
between email, research proposals, data running in background, and whatever
else going on. You actually write better if you write quickly and then edit,
but most of us forget step #2. <g>
Seriously I think NY Times thought it was "safe" to keep references in
metric, since optics is a field very much dominated by metric. Film widths
in mm, focal lengths in mm, and fiber optic attenuation in db/km are all
pretty much standard as I understand. Same as in my area of millimeter
microwave measurement.
Nat
On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:56:29
Nat Hager III wrote:
>Missed the "thousands of miles" Marcus, but did note:
>
>"Mr. Fajardo produced a nine-centimeter segment of hollow fiber..."
>
>"Corning was obtaining promising results from five-meter samples..."
>
>"The new geometric design has enabled Corning to make hollow fiber tens of
>meters long..."
>
>Nat
...
Darn it! Indeed, Nat. You're right. Gee, I should have been more careful.
But, what happened was that I was reading this thing and about half-way I
just "glanced" over the rest of the document and couldn't visually identify
any measurement *figures* anywhere.
Actually this may perhaps have been very clever on their part and perhaps an
interesting idea on the part of these guys (but I don't know if this was
done on purpose!...) when it comes to put metric in articles. Do it "in
full" as they've done here and there will be a huge chance that people may
simply miss them altogether, like I did! ;-)
Another "tactic" was the one highlighted by another colleague here that
shared that Olympic games article where the number was there but not the
unit.
Gee, to what degree these folks from the press go to avoid metric or do it
in such a way that there will be a huge chance that these will be
"missed"!... :-(
Thanks for setting me straight, Nat, and sorry for my blunder.
Marcus
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