The most common error I see is "kph" which doesn't even have any possible meaning. 'kilos per hour' would in most places be taken as "kilograms per hour". As in "my weight increases by 3 kph when I visit McDonalds"
Common mistakes when using the metric system
31–40 of 100 posts
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#32I thought this looked like good advice until I got to:
> Mass/weight distinction
> Incorrect: He weighs 70 kg; Correct: His mass is 70 kg
> Incorrect: She weighs 50 kg; Correct: She weighs 490 N on Earth
Really?! We’re not supposed to use kilograms to describe a person’s weight? And to describe someone’s weight, we have to use newtons and specify what planet they’re on? Good luck enforcing those rules.
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#33> 81 uL of catalyst -> 81 μL of catalyst Oh, interesting. NIST recommends "L": https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-...
That line refers to the 'u' substituting for 'μ', the greek letter mu, not the L symbol. https://www.nayuki.io/page/common-mistakes-when-using-the-me...
I've always thought u for mu was a neat hack - its inconvenient to type mu and u is ascii compliant.
It usually doesn't take toooo long to figure out what u means from the context
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#34A IB Diploma Physics textbook I had used a negative one exponent instead of a division symbol in units. This is not normal right?
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#35> 1 KB = 1000 bytes But standard is kB, from kilo prefix.
Here it is either KB or KiB, depending on the meaning. IRC, KB is the only exception from the rule.
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#36So, when using the kelvin temperature scale, it's lower case when using "kelvin", but uppercase when using the abbreviation "K"? That annoys me as kelvin is a name and even my phone wants to capitalise it.
I disagree with that rule. I get that people spell liter, gram, meter in lower case, but units based on names of historic persons like Volt, Ampere, Coulomb, Pascal and Kelvin deserve to be capitalized.
> deserve to be capitalized.
Why is that?
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#37A IB Diploma Physics textbook I had used a negative one exponent instead of a division symbol in units. This is not normal right?
Yeah that's the normal way in physics in my experience, certainly from undergrad level up.
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#38A IB Diploma Physics textbook I had used a negative one exponent instead of a division symbol in units. This is not normal right?
perfectly normal in physics books, maybe not usual in high school, but uni-level books all do this.
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#39> 81 uL of catalyst -> 81 μL of catalyst Oh, interesting. NIST recommends "L": https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-...
Note: The official SI unit “liter” was written “l” until a couple of decades ago, when they changed it to “L” due to frequent legibility issues (l/I/1). Some old texts use the old convention.
Changed? I never have seen the captial L for liter anywhere from daily use to scientific papers. It is always used in small caps.
Re: Common mistakes when using the metric system
#40The most common error I see is "kph" which doesn't even have any possible meaning. 'kilos per hour' would in most places be taken as "kilograms per hour". As in "my weight increases by 3 kph when I visit McDonalds"
kph drives me up the walls.