On 2007 Jan 24 , at 5:34 AM, David King wrote:
I thought that 10 of something used the prefix deka, not deca. Or
are both permissible?
David King
I thought that too, but I checked it in the most recent (2007, 8th
Ed.) of "The International System of Units (SI)" published by BIPM.
That publication is the ultimate authority on SI. It shows on page
121*, table 5 that the prefix for 10^1 is "deca" with the symbol
"da". Hence the decametre equals ten metres, and in symbols this is:
10^1 m = 1 dam
or
10 m = 1 dam
*I am getting this from the English language part of the publication.
That is contained in the second half of the document; the first half
is the French version. There is an identical table in the French
section. That table is on page 32 and shows the same thing as the
English version except there is an accent over the "e" in "deca".
(I can type that on my computer but I can't be sure it will transmits
properly. This:
"déca"
should be the correct if it is not garbled in transmission.)
Bill Hooper
75 kg body mass*
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
* plus or minus a kilogram or two, and
up 2 kg from what it used to be.
