Mike S wrote:
At 11:35 AM 10/11/2009, Magnus Danielson wrote...
The carefull reader will discover my use of the "," for decimal place
and "." for digit separation. The US convention works the other way
around. It is also part of the US adaptation of the SI standard, so
care should be taken not to interprent the NIST publication as
conveying the correct detail for certain things, they are only to be
viewed as local interpretation to the USA, possibly only recommended use.
No, It's not a "US adaptation," it is part of the SI (ref:
http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8.pdf ), which BTW
doesn't allow a glyph to be used for "digit separation," so there can be
no ambiguity:
"5.3.4 Formatting numbers, and the decimal marker
"The symbol used to separate the integral part of a number from its
decimal part is called the decimal marker. Following the 22nd CGPM
(2003, Resolution 10), the decimal marker "shall be either the point on
the line or the comma on the line." The decimal marker chosen should be
that which is customary in the context concerned.
"If the number is between +1 and -1, then the decimal marker is always
preceded by a zero. Following the 9th CGPM (1948, Resolution 7) and the
22nd CGPM (2003, Resolution 10), for numbers with many digits the digits
may be divided into groups of three by a thin space, in order to
facilitate reading. Neither dots nor commas are inserted in the spaces
between groups of three..."
I stand corrected... the 2001 version of SP330 had this type of
limitation as I recall it where as the 2008 version does not.
From the foreword of NIST SP330-2001:
"Thus, this USA edition differs from the English-language version in the
BIPM publication in the following
details: (1) the dot is used instead of the comma as the decimal marker;
(2) the American spellings ‘‘meter,’’
‘‘liter,’’ and ‘‘deka’’ are used instead of ‘‘metre,’’ ‘‘litre,’’ and
‘‘deca’’; (3) a small number of footnotes are
added for explanatory purposes and to identify USA practices that differ
from those suggested in the BIPM
publication; (4) in a few instances, American rather than British
spelling or usage is followed for a few
common words; and (5) the index has been moderately expanded.
From the foreword of NIST SP33-2008:
"Like its 2001 predecessor, the 2008 edition of NIST SP 330 conforms
with the English text in the
BIPM SI Brochure but contains a few minor differences to reflect the
most recent interpretation of the
SI for the United States by the Secretary of Commerce, as published in
the Federal Register of July
28, 1998, 63 FR 40334-40340. (The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 gives
the Secretary of Commerce
the responsibility of interpreting or modifying the SI for use in the
United States. A slightly updated
version of the 1998 interpretation is expected to be published in the
Federal Register in 2008.) These
differences include the following: (i) The spelling of English words is
in accordance with the United
States Government Printing Office Style Manual, which follows Webster's
Third New International
Dictionary rather than the Oxford Dictionary. Thus the spellings
“meter,” “liter,” and “deka” are used
rather than “metre,” “litre,” and “deca” as in the original BIPM English
text; (ii) the name of the unit
with symbol t and defined according to 1 t = 10³ kg is called “metric
ton” rather than "tonne"; (iii) the
four units curie, roentgen, rad, and rem are given in Table 10, p. 38;
(iv) a number of "Editors’ notes"
are added in order to indicate such differences where significant
(except spelling differences) and to
clarify the text; and (v) a few very minor editorial changes are made in
order to “Americanize” some
phrases."
Notice that the "dot" rather than "comma" change have been removed.
I recalled correctly, but the reality changed from when I last checked.
Cheers,
Magnus
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