Thanks, Joseph. Quite right. We are among the last generation not to have been brought up with 100% metric schooling, so little errors are inevitable!
Regards Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph B. Reid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 11:38 PM Subject: [USMA:23384] Re: Astronomical distance measures | The JPL press release is worse than Mike Joy realized when he wrote | USMA 23374. He said: | > | >"However, your use of "billions" should be relegated to the old customary | >units, as the term "a billion miles" means absolutely nothing to anyone | >other than "a long, long way". | > | >"Today in the 21st century we are all familiar with metric prefixes as we | >use them every day, e.g. kilo for "a thousand" (kilogram), milli for "a | >thousandth" (millimeter), Mega for "a million" (MegaHertz), cent for | >"hundredth" (cent coin), Giga for "a thousand million" (Gigabyte) and so | >on. | > | >"May I persuade you to consider using suitable prefixes for very large | >distances in order to make them more meaningful? Your statement "1.6 | >billion km" would be better stated as 1.6Tm (to use the correct | >terminology, i.e. Terameters), or at least you could use "xxx times the | >distance from the Earth to the Sun", or other suitable astronomical | >measuring terminology." | > | | In many countries "1.6 billion kilometers" would be understood to | mean "1.6 Pt" (petametres). If you use billion, trillion, | quadrillion, etc. you risk being misunderstood in half the world. | | Term American meaning Euopean meaning | ------ ---------------- --------------- | billion 10^9 10^12 | trillion 10^12 10^18 | quadrillion 10^15 10^24 | "Billion" is a contraction of "bi-million". | | If you will allow me to split a hair, those prefixes are mega, giga, | tera, etc., not Mega, Giga, Tera, etc., It is their symbols that are | an upper-case letter. | | Joseph B. Reid | 17 Glebe Road West | Toronto M5P 1C8 Telephone 416-486-6071 | |
