Thank you, Martin
While my reply maybe a little off topic, I appreciate learning how they
decide when someone has too much (or too little) sugar in their blood.
Diabeties runs in my family as well.
Linda Bergeron
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Martin Vlietstra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:36335] Re: Symbol for deka/deca
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:03:31 -0000
I think that the reason for using "da" as a prefix for deka was to have all
prefixes up to and including "k" as lower case and prefixes from "M" and
upwards as upper case. Moreover, the prefixes "deka" and "deci" are only
used in specialist applications where there is little risk of confusion.
For example, the sugar in one's blood is measured in mmol/L in the UK, but
in mg/dL in Germany. The rationale behind using mg/dL is that one need
never use decimal points and need never have superfluous zeros - the normal
range for a healthy person is 70 to 120 mg/dL.
As an aside, the use of mg/dL has an added advantage over mmol/L - one does
not need to know the molecular weight of sugar if one wishes to calculate
how much sugar a healthy adult should have in their blood stream. Assuming
that an adult has 5L of blood, then 70 mg/dL works out at 3.5g, while
120mg/dL works out at 6g - in other words about a teaspoon full. Since I am
diabetic, this information is valuable.
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 12:33 AM
Subject: [USMA:36330] Re: Symbol for deka/deca
In a message dated 2006-03-19 18:54:17 Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
What in the world possessed the SI committee (CGPM) to change this?
D was far more consistent with the rest of the symbols for prefixes
than da -- prefixes >1 are mostly capital letters, da is the ONLY
prefix symbol that is not one letter.
Surely there was some justification for this . . . anyone know what
it was?
Jim
My biggest guess would be because in reality D and d where probably used
interchangeably. In the hospital I work I see many things that say ML
instead of mL...It's obvious in the instances I see ML used that it means
0.001 L instead of 1000 L but with dL and DL it might not always be so
obvious.
Fortunately the same hospital is trying to forbid the use of 'cc' and
force the use of mL instead. Unfortunately they also want to ban ug and
enforce mcg instead.
I actually pointed out to a pharmacist that I cannot possibly administer
a dose of 'one mega litre' and the dropper that says '1 ML' on the side
cannot possibly contain '1 ML'. The pharmacist looked at me like I was
crazy and truly didn't understand the difference in 1 ML and 1 mL.
Richard
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