I'd admit some scientists still use microns and angstroms, but these units are ugly because they aren't constructed systematically. They are officially discouraged by BIPM, CGPM, national standards laboratories, ISO, and by many of the international scientific unions. They are the metric equivalent of feet and inches... -- SJK |
I'd admit some scientists still use microns and angstroms, but these units are ugly because they aren't constructed systematically. They are officially discouraged by BIPM, CGPM, national standards laboratories, ISO, and by many of the international scientific unions. They are the metric equivalent of feet and inches... -- SJK There seem to be two differing views going on here, concept and preciseness. I'm not convinced that the concept of scale is all that difficult to grasp, except when dealing with very large or very small and even then perhaps we're only providing a list of nice facts (grains of sand in a teaspoon v sahara). Conversely exactly what kind of day and precisely how many seconds it has doesn't matter when dealing with scale because the detail is irrelevant except to a scientist who already understands this stuff anyway? I revert to my original question of the purpose of this all is, except that it creates a lot of pages? -Rjstott |
Sorry but this bit of Wiki just doesn't do the business for me. I know that I should put the effort in to sort it but I just don't have the confidence to replace all this stuff. Could we get some more views?
First, why is this list of different units of measurement on a page called "orders of magnitude"? The latter does not mean "units of measurement." Why not put it on a [units of measurement]? (or better, [listing of units of measurement]?) page?
Second, there are names like 1e-15 m. For someone who wants to know what "1e-15 m" means, in the article, we are told: "To help compare different orders of magnitudes this page lists lengths between 10-15 m and 10-14 m." This isn't very helpful for someone who doesn't know what "1e-15 m" means in the first place. For instance, what does that mean, using decimal places? Yes, any well-educated person knows how to figure it out; but a Wikipedia article about X, remember, is always for the benefit of a (perhaps theoretical) person who doesn't know much at all about X.
Third, I generally agree with the person who said (somewhere) that the titles of these articles could perhaps be stated in more clearly recognizable words and numbers, without symbols, e.g.: [1,000,000,000 meters]? (or metres, if you insist). What's wrong with that, at least with the magnitudes close to 1?
Fourth, I think the simplest, single examples should be given for each unit of measurement at each order of magnitude. Again, the whole point here is not to make a pretty table but to make concepts clear to people who do not understand them. If we need several tables, grand, let's make them.
In general, try to bear in mind that our task here is to make concepts as simple as possible--it is not to build a merely pretty-and-clever system of webpages. Prettiness and cleverness are good but must be entirely subsumed under the task of making concepts clear to those who do not have them. --LMS
I disagree with the absolute mish-mash of units being used in this table. I replaced angstroms with nanometres, and gave microns their SI name (micrometres), but it still has four different units being used to measure distances (metres, nanometres, astronomical units and light years). Similarly, for time it has seconds, days, years, etc., for volumes it has cubic metres and litres, for mass grams, kilograms and tonnes, for energy joules and electron volts... the whole idea of "orders of magnitude" would be clearer if a single unit is used throughout. -- SJK
Of course one could argue that the differences here are too small to make a difference, but I still think that the use of units with varying definitions and varying magnitudes is ugly. Which is why I'd say, stick to the SI second.
I'd admit some scientists still use microns and angstroms, but these units are ugly because they aren't constructed systematically. They are officially discouraged by BIPM, CGPM, national standards laboratories, ISO, and by many of the international scientific unions. They are the metric equivalent of feet and inches... -- SJK
I revert to my original question of the purpose of this all is, except that it creates a lot of pages? -Rjstott