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From: George A. Heintzelman (georgeh_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-10-05 13:01:43


> Jonathan H Lundquist wrote:
> >
> > > From: "Eric Ford" <eford_at_[hidden]>
> >
> > >> Quantities can be measured in bins, cartons, bags, etc., all of
> > >> which are user-defined units of measure.
> > >
> > > These can all be considered pure numbers. You're counting something.
[snip]

> > I think they have to be more than pure numbers, they're units of
> > measure in that bins can be converted to cartons, etc. But the
> > conversion factors do depend on the qualifiers.

> I wouldn't have said "pure numbers" like Eric did, but I agree with what
> he is saying. The quantities being measured here are "dimensionless"
> and "unitless", and can decay into "pure numbers" in the appropriate
> circumstances, but I would agree that they are not _currently_ pure
> number.

I disagree. If we develop tags, then I think these things have an SI
unit of Amount<>, which can be measured in units of moles, or
individual items. Anything can be measured in this units, not just the
atoms and molecules of chemistry.

And as is very natural with other types of SI unit Amount<>, the
conversion factors are important. Treating it this way may make some of
these things clearer.

George Heintzelman
georgeh_at_[hidden]


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