Re: [boost] formal review request : mcs::units

From: Andreas Harnack (ah.boost.01_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-02-09 07:39:02

Hi Matthias,

I've been following the discussion about physical quantities for some 
times now and I'm wondering if someone has thought of representing base 
units by prime numbers?

Any positive natural number can unambiguously be split into it's prime 
factors, so any rational number would be an unambiguous representation 
of a derived dimension with the exponents of the prime factors 
representing the exponents of the base dimensions. The only problem are 
common factors in nominator and denominator, which could be normalized 
using the Euclidean algorithm. Multiplying dimensions is then reduced to 
multiplying rational numbers with subsequent normalization. That should 
be a lot easier then dealing with sorted lists.

I might find some time to write up an example implementation.
Interested?

Best wishes,
Andreas