On May 20, 2009, at 2:36 PM, der Mouse wrote: >>> A ton of cooling is 12 Kbtu, about the heat of crystallization of >>> one ton of water, per hour. >>>> Why do engineers use so many whacky units? >>> [...], tradition and convenience. >> Good excuses for the masses. Not so good for engineering, which >> depends on precise communication. > > Which measuring air conditioning capacities in tons provides. Just > because it's disorienting to those who are acquainted with only other > meanings of the word doesn't make it any less precise.
It's poor communication. Specialized jargon. Language should illuminate the issue to the widest possible audience. But here, even to specialists, the language obfuscates, since using the same units for heat and electrical energy would reveal the thermodynamic efficiency of the technology. > It's not even > ambiguous, since air conditioning capacity doesn't have units of > weight. You might as well ask why motor power is measured in > horsepower - that's another historical unit that's cryptic and > baffling > to the uninitiated, but is perfectly good to those in the industry. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > > _______________________________________________ > geda-user mailing list > geda-user@moria.seul.org > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user > John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ j...@noqsi.com _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
