2002-08-21 I agree with all that has been said. The hectare is useful, but the are can be dispensed with.
For those who have a problem with the name hectare, they can use the term square hectometre (hm^2). This would be more coherent with SI structure. They are both the same thing. 1 hm^2 = 100 m x 100 m = 10 000 m^2 = 1 ha. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, 2002-08-21 18:02 Subject: [USMA:21865] Re: Dual labelling, hectares Dear Bill, In Australia, the hectare is a commonly used rural unit. In city areas the square metre is more common to measure the size of housing allotments and the size of the floor areas of houses. I have never seen any reference to ares in any Australian commercial context. A year or two ago, I was invited to speak to a large farmer's group. I was interested to hear reference to a unit � crop yield per millimetres of rainfall hectare � that I had not encountered previously. This unit made possible comparisons between different rainfall districts as well as being useful to compare different seasons on the same farm. As Australia is a large dry continent with vary variable rainfall, our farmers are focused on rainfall and its measurement. Cheers, Pat Naughtin CAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-08-22 05.19, Bill Potts at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Carl: > > First, the pronunciations are air and hektair. > > Second, you're right. Hectare is certainly a useful unit -- for farmers, > real estate people, etc. Are is less useful, in that smaller areas are just > as easily expressed in square meters. (It's possibly easier, for example, to > say "ten fifty square meters" than "ten point five ares" -- more syllables, > admittedly, but it rolls of the tongue more easily and uses a less obscure > unit.) Both are (a) and hectare (ha) are accepted for use with SI and > neither is actually deprecated. > > Third, cubic millimeter is a new one to me. (Obviously it exists [by > definition], but I've never seen it actually used.) Perhaps you meant > milliliter, which is the same as cubic centimeter. > > Fourth, knowing nothing about your calculator, I don't know whether acre is > a typo or actually and acre. If the calculator is all metric, it's obviously > are. If it's a conversion calculator, it's probably on the FFU side of the > equation. > > Bill Potts, CMS > Roseville, CA > http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >> Behalf Of Carl Sorenson >> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 11:20 >> To: U.S. Metric Association >> Subject: [USMA:21856] Re: Dual labeling, hectares >> >> >> David Owen wrote: >>> The metric system would catch on faster if its evangelists were more >>> sensitive to other traditions, and less unbending about deviations >>> from theoretical consistency. >> >> I couldn't have said it better myself. I think all USMA members should >> engrave this on a plaque and post it in a place they will see often. >> >> My XML page has moved to http://ssp-web.lib.byu.edu/measurement/ and it >> now includes an option to specify significant figures. I can't >> guarantee that the site will always be up. >> >> I have a question about the hectare. According to NIST at >> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html, the hectare is one of >> the "units outside the SI that are currently accepted for use with the >> SI, subject to further review" whose "continued use is not encouraged." >> The hectare seems to me to be a very useful unit. It seems more >> practical for some purposes than square kilometers and square meters for >> the same reason that the liter is more practical than cubic meters and >> cubic millimeters. >> >> I presume that a hectare is 100 "ares" and an "are" is 100 square >> meters. Is this correct? How is this unit pronounced? I have a >> calculator with a conversion chart that refers to "acre" rather than >> "are". Is this a typo? >> >> Carl >> >
