I should of course have used the present tense with respect to the Cal and cal calories (well, Cal, anyway).
I guess it'll be some time before we see nutrition information in joules. Fortunately, things like heat dissipation rates are now shown in watts (W) or kilowatts (kW), rather than calories per hour (cal/h) or kilocalories per hour (kcal/h). (Cumulative heat dissipation or transfer should, of course, be shown in joules (J) or kilojoules (kJ).) As a humorous aside (and with apologies to those who've seen me cite this before), a long-since-disappeared company called Braegen had specification sheets that showed the heat dissipation rates of its equipment in the bizarre (and non-existent) unit of "kilograms per calorie." It would appear that their equipment was converting energy into mass in a slow-motion version of the Big Bang. Obviously, the person who wrote the specification sheets was using a unit created from his/her faulty memory of what an engineer had provided. Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >Behalf Of Bill Potts >Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 15:00 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:24084] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) > > >The gauss uses G as its symbol, not g. > >As the English versions of unit names in SI are always lower case, GRAM >would be totally unacceptable. In speech, there would certainly be >no way to >distinguish between gram and GRAM. > >With the obsolete Calorie and calorie, one could at least understand which >was intended by the context. The large C Calorie (Cal, which equals 1000 >small c calories) was used only in the field of nutrition and the small c >calorie (cal) was never used in that field. > >Bill Potts, CMS >Roseville, CA >http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >>Behalf Of Brij Bhushan Vij >>Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 13:07 >>To: U.S. Metric Association >>Subject: [USMA:24081] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) >> >> >>Sirs: >>.....gauss did occur to me, but used 'g' as symbol which confused >>with 'gram >>-g'. Using 'Galileos' for kiloGRAM, sound reasonable but symbol (Gi) shall >>again be toungtwister: microgalileos (µGi). >>My suggestion shall be GRAM=kilogram; and Metric tonne=kG rather than 1000 >>kg. However, BIPM/CCU can review the situation! >>Merry Metric Chrismas (regret for attched card) to all friends. >>Regards, >>Brij B.Vij<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >>>From: "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>Subject: [USMA:24051] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) >>>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 16:22:20 -0800 >>> >>>As I was drafting the message, I first used Ga. Then I thought >it might be >>>too close to gal, which already exists as an obsolete unit symbol, so I >>>changed it. >>> >>>However, I may have been too cautious. It certainly makes better sense >>>(assuming we ignore the gal "problem") than either Go or Gi. >>> >>>It now occurs to me, of course, that the symbol Gi would be the >>same as the >>>binary prefix Gi, for gibi. I guess 2^30 galileos would be >>written as GiGi. >>> >>>(For the excessively pedantic, I do realize that the prefix Gi >is unlikely >>>to be used with anything other than the symbols for bit or byte -- >>>currently >>>the only reason [because of computer address structures] for having it in >>>the first place.) >>> >>>Bill Potts, CMS >>>Roseville, CA >>>http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >>> >>> >-----Original Message----- >>> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >>> >Behalf Of kilopascal >>> >Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 15:34 >>> >To: U.S. Metric Association >>> >Subject: [USMA:24050] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) >>> > >>> > >>> >2002-12-16 >>> > >>> >Bill, >>> > >>> >That is a good choice. >>> > >>> >Would a shortened form of the name (to gal) be acceptable, in the way >>>that >>> >ampere is sometimes shortened to amp? >>> > >>> >And wouldn't the symbol Ga be better, instead of either Gi or Go? At >>>least >>> >this way it fits both the first and last names. >>> > >>> >John >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> >----- Original Message ----- >>> >From: "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> >Sent: Monday, 2002-12-16 17:50 >>> >Subject: [USMA:24047] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) >>> > >>> > >>> >> G is already assigned to the metric, but non-SI unit, gauss. >>> >> >>> >> I cannot think of an SI unit whose symbol duplicates that of a pre-SI >>> >metric >>> >> unit. If we were to use G for the symbol of a renamed kilogram, >>> >that would >>> >> be a first. >>> >> >>> >> An all-uppercase GRAM would never be approved and would, in >>any case be >>> >> confusing (like the big-C Calorie, used for nutrition). I'd >>> >prefer to call >>> >> it a galileo (with Gi as the symbol), but I don't think that >>> >would go down >>> >> well with the majority of the population. Imagine, also, >measuring the >>> >mass >>> >> of the active ingredients in pills in microgalileos (µGi). >>> >> >>> >> I think the best option would correspond roughly to the >current use of >>> >liter >>> >> for cubic decimeter. (I say roughly, because neither of those >>is a base >>> >> unit.) Keep gram as the de facto non-prefixed (but not base) >>> >unit and have >>> >> the additional, everyday name, galileo for the base unit, kilogram. >>> >Several >>> >> participants in this list have suggested other names, but none has >>> >achieved >>> >> a consensus. There would be no need for an mass counterpart to the >>> >> milliliter (i.e., milligalileo). Milliliter has the >advantage of being >>> >more >>> >> concise than cubic centimeter and avoids the need for a superscripted >>>3. >>> >The >>> >> problem wouldn't exist with the gram galileo relationship. >>> >> >>> >> Incidentally, I propose Gi, rather than Go, for galileo, because >>> >Galileo's >>> >> full name was Galileo Galilei. However, I could live with either one. >>> >> >>> >> Bill Potts, CMS >>> >> Roseville, CA >>> >> http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >>> >> >>> >> >-----Original Message----- >>> >> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >>> >> >Behalf Of Brij Bhushan Vij >>> >> >Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 12:30 >>> >> >To: U.S. Metric Association >>> >> >Subject: [USMA:24046] Re: tonne = kiloGRAM (An Off Shoot) >>> >> > >>> >> > >>> >> >Simpson, sir and friends: >>> >> >It may not be a bad idea to term - though it shall confuse *several >>> >> >hardliners* - GRAM=kilogram=1000g. >>> >> >The tonne shall then shall be kG; and the gram to become mG. The >>> >> >symbol for >>> >> >this *New Unit - GRAM* shall be (G)and not (g). Is there any other >>>unit, >>> >> >using G as its symbol? >>> >> >It may not be harmful to think of an alternative 'Unit name'! >>> >> >Brij<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> >> > >>> >> >>From: "Terry Simpson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> >> >>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> >> >>To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> >> >>Subject: [USMA:24042] Re: tonne = megagram (An Off Shoot) >>> >> >>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 19:52:40 -0000 >>> >> >> >>> >> >>Gustaf Sjöberg wrote: >>> >> >> >The kilogram is just not right in the sense that it is a >base unit >>> >> >> >that by name is based on another unit. >>> >> >> >>> >> >> >>> >> >>Yes the kilogram is an unfortunate anomaly in that respect. >>> >> >> >>> >> >> >>> >> >> >This unit, the gram, is too small to be a base unit itself. >>> >> >> >>> >> >>I really don't care what size the base unit is. We all use >>units with >>> >> >>prefixes in shopping, human sciences and engineering. So call it >>>tonne, >>> >> >>gram, kilogram or blob and choose any base mass for it. The main >>>issue >>> >> >>for me is that the name is identical throughout the size >>scale and it >>> >> >>should reduce factors in formulae. >>> >> >> >>> >> >>The discomfort that we feel with megagram is merely the same >>>discomfort >>> >> >>of unfamiliarity that anti-metric people frequently quote as a >>> >criticism >>> >> >>of metric units. >>> >> > >>> >> > >>> >> >_________________________________________________________________ >>> >> >MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. >>> >> >http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus >>> >> > >>> >> >>> >> >>> > >> >> >>_________________________________________________________________ >>Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* >>http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail >> >
