The last paragraph is troubling. The same group has "used the wrong gas
constant" before. This seems like it is the kind of mistake you wish to be
careful to not repeat. However, it is also a consequence of using "naked
numbers." If you do calculations without the units appended to your
measurements, and do not get the expected unit cancellation, you are 100% sure
you are making a mistake. (Even if they cancel, you can still make a mistake,
but if they don't, a mistake is largely guaranteed.
From: Stanislav Jakuba <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2016 4:18 PM
Subject: [USMA 315] Units mixup
Too bad we cannot estimate the cost of not being metric that includes also the
money and trouble spent on fixing errors caused by unit mix-ups.
Quote:The researchers originally reported that a set of 14 PAHs had total
concentrations of 330, 240, and 210 ng/m3 for the three groups, respectively.
But they later discovered that they had mistakenly used a value of the ideal
gas constant with incorrect units in their calculations to determine the air
concentrations of PAHs and to adjust them for sampling temperature, Anderson
explains. This error invalidated the original results.
Read the whole article at:http://cen.acs.org/articles/94
/web/2016/08/Fracking-air-poll ution-study-retracted.html?
utm_source=Newsletter&utm_ medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign =CEN
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