On 2004 May 18 , at 11:09 AM, Tom Wade VMS Systems wrote:
... one of the main advantages of the liter: the fact that it follows the 'normal' linear use of prefixes.
No, that's not the main advantage of the litre. The main (only?) advantage to the litre is that it is a convenient size for ordinary household uses, where the cubic metre is much too large and the cubic centimetre (or worse yet the cubic millimetre) is too small.
Tom went on to say:
Translating milliliters into liters or back is as easy as converting between millimeters and meters.
But that not where the problem lies. The problem lies in converting from millilitres into cubic millimetres and converting from litres into cubic metres, etc.
The real confusion arises when we consider the fact that: a kilolitre is not equal to a cubic kilometre a megalitre is not equal to a cubic megametre a gigalitre is not equal to a cubic gigametre (but a gigalitre IS equal to a cubic kilometre!) and a millilitre is not equal to a cubic millimetre a microlitre is not equal to a cubic micrometre (but a microlitre IS equal to a cubic millimetre!) etc.
Tom also said:
... to suggest that we shouldn't use
milliliters (almost universally used on soda cans here) or centiliters (widely
used in the wine industry) would be a huge own goal.
But I am not recommending that we now* stop using millilitres or centilitres (how about decilitres?), since they are to a greater or less greater extent already in common use. I am recommending that we NOT introduce kilolitres and megalitres etc, because they are NOT already in common use (and they certainly are not needed for common household uses).
You can't imagine a shopper asking for a gigalitre of milk, can you? But if an oil company wants to buy a gigalitre of oil, they can jolly well call it
a million cubic metres (1 000 000 m^3). And if they don't like all writing all those zeros, I'm sure their engineers and their business people are sufficiently well educated to be able to write it in scientific notation (power of ten notation).
Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
* I think it might be wise ultimately to try to rid ourselves of the millilitre and centilitre (and decilitre), but I am not advocating that we try to do it right now. I do think that the reasons to avoid kilolitres, megalitres, gigalitres, etc, would apply to the millilitre, centilitre, decilitre, also, except for the fact that the latter are already in such common use.
<><><><><><><><><><><><> Make it simple; Make it Metric <><><><><><><><><><><><>
