I have interspersed some answers to your questions in blue.
on 2005-11-06 03.19, Jim Elwell at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
At 4 October 2005, 09:29 PM, Pat Naughtin wrote:I took this list from the National Measurement Regulations SCHEDULE 34 Regulation 84 Page 53 where these units are listed with the legal conversion factors.
The words 'legal unit of measurement' are very carefully defined in the Australian 'National Measurement Regulations 1999' subtitled 'Statutory Rules 1999 NO. 110'
Of the units listed in these regulations there are:
7 SI base units of measurement
The standard SI set
17 SI derived units of measurement
The four that are missing on comparison with the SI pamphlet are: radian, steradian, degree Celsius, and sievert. I have no idea why these 4 were left out.
19 Non-SI units of measurement used with SI units of measurement
The first 5 are: decibel, hectare, electron-volt, stokes, and nautical mile.
8 Additional legal units of measurement
These are inch, foot, troy ounce, horsepower, millibar, millimetre of mercury, foot per minute, and kilocalorie. These 8 are very carefully circumscribed with a special section called 'Purposes for which additional legal units of measurement may be used' and these are essentially legacy issues such as 'millibar -- air pressure in the aviation industry' or 'millimetre of mercury -- blood pressure'.
As time goes by this list is getting less and less; there were 43 of these in 1993 and only 8 in 1999.
Very interesting! Particularly the "nautical mile."
Can you list any of the original 43 that have been dropped?
Length
mile
chain
yard
link
foot
inch
Area
square yard
square foot
square inch
acre
rood
perch
Mass
ton
short ton (sh tn)
hundredweight (cwt)
quarter (qr)
stone
pound (lb)
ounce (oz)
dram (dr)
grain (gr)
slug
troy ounce (oz tr)
pennyweight (dwt)
Volume
cubic yard (cu yd or yd3)
cubic foot (cu ft or ft3)
cubic inch (cu in or in3)
gallon (gal)
quart (qt)
pint (pt)
gill
fluid ounce (fl oz)
fluid drachm (fl dr)
minim (min)
Velocity and speed
mile per hour (mile/h or mph)
mile per hour
foot per minute (ft/min)
Work and energy
kilocalorie (kcal)
calorie (cal)
British thermal unit (Btu)
Power
horsepower (hp)
Pressure
millimetre of mercury (mmHg)
millibar (mb or mbar)
Notes:
There are two mentions of 'miles per hour', one for conversion to metres per second and one for conversion to kilometres per hour. So there were really only 42 old measures listed in the regulations in 1993.
As I mentioned earlier these were reduced to these 8 (inch, foot, troy ounce, horsepower, millibar, millimetre of mercury, foot per minute, and kilocalorie) by 1999 and these were specifically confined to specific uses. The 1999 Regulations are the latest that I have. There may be newer versions.
The only reference to the Customary measures of the USA is the reference yo a 'short ton'; all other pre-metric measures refer to Imperial measures from the UK.
However (and probably beyond the scope of this forum), I still wonder what an Australian court would do with a contract between and Australian firm and one from another country which used non-approved units of measurement.
I can't answer this question. I am not a lawyer and I would not know where to start looking for case law to answer your question. However, I agree that this probably beyond the scope of this forum; I won't explore this any further.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin ASM (NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)*
PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'.
You can subscribe by going to http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
* Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual – for writers, editors and printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) with the National Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. For more information go to: http://metricationmatters.com
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