>Being used, as a mathematician, to the use of "data" to mean a set of >numbers, I feel uncomfortable with the current use of "datum" in GPS and >allied topics.
I understand where you're coming from ... but hey, I don't make the news, I just report it. As I understand it, GPS people didn't invent this usage of datum, they inherited it from surveyors. My only point was that "datums" is, from everything I have been able to find, the correct plural when we're referring to mathematical models of the Earth's surface. I see your point about the usage of datmum being technically incorrect ... but "common usage" seems to have won out here. --Ken
