No. The liter is a fine "special name" for volumes between 1-999 liters, the
milliliter and microliter for smaller amounts. I am objecting to the usage of
prefixes greater than 1 with it. Prefixes smaller than one may be used
(although centiliter and deciliter are not permitted for trade in the US).
Not only does NIST SP811 recommend against prefixes greater than one with the
liter, the current FTC rules supporting FPLA and current UPLR require the cubic
meter for volumes in excess of 1 m³, and do not allow the kiloliter. By size,
they are quite specific about units ("these and no others")
If you push the kiloliter, it is simply a distraction from the attempt to amend
FPLA to permissive-metric-only; to me, it makes no sense, and I would advocate
against the change, even at the risk of delaying FPLA amendment.
While I am not advocating it, the SAE (TSB003) does prefer cubic decimeter to
liter and cubic centimeter to milliliter. It is not strictly necessary to use
the liter at all, although I think it is a convenient unit "in range."
Curiously, FPLA and UPLR allow cubic decimeters, but not linear decimeters as
units for trade.
--- On Wed, 4/8/09, STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]> wrote:
From: STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:44477] Re: FPLA 2010
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 8:32 AM
I disagree with the NIST in the case of kL because L is used widely and well
known in the public sector. Are you suggesting that mm^3 be used instead of
L?
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: John M. Steele
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 8:09 AM
Subject: [USMA:44476] Re: FPLA 2010
*It is harder to visual than 1 m³
*It uses a prefixed, incoherent "special name" unit when a coherent unit fits
better.
*NIST SP811 says you shouldn't use prefixes greater than 1 with the liter.
Would you buy 1 mt of meat instead of 1 kg? The tonne only makes sense for
amounts larger than 1000 kg, and the liter only for amounts less than 1 m³.
Among the other "special names", I notice the are is now deprecated when
standing alone and is only accepted as the hectare. It probably only makes
sense between 1 ha and 100 ha, then you think about square kilometers. (Some
relaxation of rules OK in tables to retain same units through a column)
--- On Wed, 4/8/09, STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]> wrote:
From: STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:44474] Re: FPLA 2010
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 7:35 AM
The kL is the same size as a cubic metre. So what's the problem? The litre is
a very commonly used volume by virtually all people.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Hooper
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 9:58 PM
Subject: [USMA:44468] Re: FPLA 2010
On Apr 6 , at 8:18 AM, John M. Steele wrote:
I know you love the kiloliter, but I personally find the cubic meter a lot
easier to visual. You know, it's about 1 m x 1 m x 1 m. :)
--- On Mon, 4/6/09, STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]> wrote:
To go along with putting L (liter) first, (but) I suggest using the kL
(kiloliter)
in place of a cubic meter in non-engineering (public) usage. kL is much easier
to use and is more understandable by the public.I go along with John on this.
Stanley may think of a kilotitre to be easier to visualize, but I don't. I keep
trying to visualize a thousand one-litre bottles of a beverage (or five hundred
2 L bottles, etc.). None of that works for me.
But a cube 1 m long and 1 m wide and 1 m high is easy to visualize. Before I
retired, I concluded that my nice big desk in my lab occupied a space very
close to a cubic metre. It was a bit longer than 1 m but a bit shorter than 1
m, and had a width of just about 1 m, so it came out quite close to 1 m^3.
I used that as my example of a cubic metre for students in my metric and in my
physics classes.
Bill Hooper
1810 mm tall
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
==========================
SImplification Begins With SI.
==========================
