[USMA:36418] Re: Units used in popular science books: buy Canadian

[Bill Hooper]

On 2006 Mar 31 , at 5:03 PM, Jim Elwell wrote: Another way of saying this is that Table 3 of BIPM's SI document (Derived Units with Special Names) should be expanded with reasonable expediency, to help control the proliferation of such names. Jim's point is well taken, but most of the rest of this discussion has had to do with the possibility that shorter names may be reasonable for multisyllabic unit names like millimetre (4 syllables), kilopascal (4 syllable), kilogram (3 syllable), megawatt (3 syllables), etc. This is not the same thing as developing shorter names for units that are combinations of other units, which is what Table 3 refers to in the document Jim cites. BOTH of these ideas are open to valid discussion, but they are not the same. One proposes to allows kilometres per hour to be called klicks; the other allows kilogram-metres per second squared to be called newtons.  The one is arguing that we need shorter terms for any SI unit that has too many syllables (e.g. 3 or 4 or more) so that we would have to create special names for kilometres,  cubic centimetres, kilopascals, etc.  The other is arguing that we need special, shorter names for things like the kilogram-metre-squared per second-squared (there is one: it is the unit of energy, the joule) and the kilogram-metre per second (there is not one; this is a unit of momentum), etc. One can be for one of these ideas while being against the other. In any case, let us not confuse the discussion by mixing them together. Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA ==========================    SImplification Begins With SI. ==========================