>I don't believe anything I wrote earlier contradicted what you wrote >below. Specifically I do not believe I said that the litre is >deprecated for non-precision use. I said that I understood it to be >advisable not to use the SI prefixes with litre; for example, since >1000 L = 1 m^3, therefore the cubic metre should be used, not the >kilolitre.
But this would negate one of the main advantages of the liter: the fact that it follows the 'normal' linear use of prefixes. Translating milliliters into liters or back is as easy as converting between millimeters and meters. Whereas I see the need for converting to cubic meters when coherence is required (e.g. calculating densities etc), to suggest that we shouldn't use milliliters (almost universally used on soda cans here) or centiliters (widely used in the wine industry) would be a huge own goal. Remember, the aim is to encourage the use of the metric system. Adopting strategies that make it more difficult are definitely counterproductive. Liters are probably the metric units that most Americans are familiar with, thanks to Coca Cola. Lets be grateful for that. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wade | EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EuroKom | X400: g=tom;s=wade;o=eurokom;p=eurokom; Unit A2 | a=eirmail400;c=ie Nutgrove Office Park | Tel: +353 (1) 296-9696 Rathfarnham | Fax: +353 (1) 296-9697 Dublin 14 | Disclaimer: This is not a disclaimer Ireland | Tip: "Friends don't let friends do Unix !"
