Re: [boost] [review] pqs

From: Paul Giaccone (paulg_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-08 12:36:14

Martin Bonner wrote:
> Paul Giaccone Sent:
>
>   
>> Martin Bonner wrote:
>>     
>>> Paul Giaccone Sent:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Centi-, deci-, deca- and hecto- are not officially part of SI
>>>> nomenclature. 
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> That's not what the Bureau Internatoinal des Poids et Mesures
>>> (http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter3/prefixes.html) says.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Interesting... I stand corrected. But are they in official scientific
>> use? 
>>     
>>>> Does the second officially take any prefix? Can you talk about a
>>>> "megasecond", 
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Yes.  (Although it is EXTREMELY unusual).
>>>
>>>       
>> Quoting your source back at you, Martin... according to the section at
>> the bottom of the page, you can't officially say "megasecond".
>>
>> Paul
>>     
> Are you refering to the text:
> "Prefix names and symbols are  [...] never used with the units of time:
> minute, min; hour, h; day, d."
>
> I read that section as saying you can't use mega with minute, hour, and
> day.  So megasecond is OK, but kilohour is not.  (If you read it as
> applying to ALL units of time, it means you can't use millisecond either
> - which would be silly!)
>
>   
Yes, that's quite true. But I think you can also interpret it as meaning 
(even if it does not actually say this explicitly) that SI prefixes are 
not used with multiples of a second ("megasecond", etc), (but are OK 
with submultiples, like you say) and that "minute", etc, should be used 
instead.

Paul