Re: decimal point/comma (was conplaneteering)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@M...> wrote:

>Well, bels aren't really unitless, because they represent values on a
>logarithmic scale.  You have to expand them to get a simple factor.
>1 bel = 10, 2 bels = 100, etc.  It's true, however, that the
>exponentiation is *all* that "bel" means; it's effectively a named
>unit for "ten to the power of", and there's nothing about its value
>which ties it to measuring sound.  You could certainly say that a
>right angle is 2 decibel radians, for instance.
I've always been under the impression that "bel" was the measurement
of the intensity of sound, power, voltage or current.  How can the
measurement of intensity be applied to a linear measurement?  Can one
radian be "more intense" than another?

Charlie