Re: OT: Rant about degres Celsius (was: introduction)

> Date:         Mon, 3 Dec 2001 01:45:11 -0600
> From: Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
>
> Wow! I never knew the liter (that's our spelling!) was not SI/"metric." As
> for the symbol, I've always assumed it was either capital <L> or script
> small <l> because print small <l> is hard or impossible to differentiate
> from <1> and <I>.
Actually the litre _is_ defined in SI, as one cubic decimetre --- the
symbol is plain l or L, nothing about script. The committee governing
SI chose to postpone the decision, last time the selection of one of
the two symbols was debated.

It seems that France and the US has chosen to go with L --- but the EU
mandates l for marking fluid consumer goods. So it may be a while
before agreement is reached.

(The litre used to be an independent SI unit, equal to the volume of
one kilogram of pure water at 4 degrees Celsius and sea level pressure
--- since that volume could be measured more precisely than a cubic
decimetre, at that time. It was changed to the current definition when
both types of measurements became precise enough that the difference
caused problems in practice.

(Originally, of course, there wasn't supposed to be a difference,
since the kilogram was first defined as the weight of a cubic
decimetre of pure water at 4 degrees Celsius and sea level pressure
--- but once a set of precision weights had been made, that became the
standard, and IIRC it turned out to be a few tenths of a percent off).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)