On Tuesday 03 January 2006 00:18, Pat Naughtin wrote: > Dear Pierre, > > Might I respectfully point out that a tog is not an SI unit. It does not > appear in the BIPM Pamphlet at all. > > It is simply scientific and technical jargon used in the textile trade. > Even there, in my experience, it was understood, or used, by very few.
I'm not proposing that the tog be an SI unit. I'm proposing that the kelvin square meter per watt be given a short name. Textile makers have a jargon unit (actually two, the other is the clo) for this quantity. Builders have their own jargon unit (R value). I think that this means that the SI unit ought to have a short name, so that textile makers and builders talk the same unit, don't expend lots of syllables, and don't have to remember which side of the slash the square meter goes on. Consider the katal. There was a jargon unit used by biochemists called the enzyme unit, equal to a micromole per minute. Because this is not coherent with the SI, someone proposed that the mole per second, which isn't even that long to say, be given a one-word name, and the katal was born. It still took a few decades to be accepted by the CGPM. phma
