Dear Mr. Schneider,
I came upon your page on "The Metric System" at
http://js082.k12.sd.us/Notes_and_Wrkshts/Metric_Factor-Lable/metric_system_info.htm
and almost immediately some errors caught my eye. I applaud you for
promoting the metric system but it is important that you should publish
correct information.
You state, "The metric units are interrelated in such a way that only
five fundamental standards are necessary." Actually, seven base
quantities are required to complete the system. Further, you list the
coulomb as one of those, which is incorrect. The coulomb is a specially
named derived unit defined as an ampere second. The base unit of mass is
the kilogram, not the gram.
I note that you start some units (mostly those named after people) with
uppercase letters, which is incorrect. All unit names start with
lowercase letters. Symbols for units named after people start with an
uppercase letter.
You show "degrees Kelvin" as a unit (as one of your "standard" units and
in a table below incongruously under the column head "Metric Heat
Unit"). For quite some time now it has been only "kelvin"; the "degree"
portion was dropped. Thus the triple-point of water occurs at 273.16
kelvins (273.16 K).
The parsec is NOT a metric unit.
These are just some things that I spotted immediately. There are many
more errors in your page.
Please consult the SI Brochure at
http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/general.html
or the official U.S. implementation of that in NIST Special Publication
330, which is found at
http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/contents.html
Then, please correct the errors on your page. By the way, you should
list those as "Resources".
Thank you,
Jim Frysinger
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
