The on-going development of driverless cars is seldom out of the headlines. There are questions about the reliability of the software which will drive the cars and who will be liable should there be an accident.
Continue reading “Driverless Cars”Category: Technical
International Vocabulary of Metrology
International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM) is a “System of Units”, not a “System of Measurement”. The VIM explains the terminology used in publications related to measurement, including the official SI brochure.
Continue reading “International Vocabulary of Metrology”International Organisation for Legal Metrology
The International Organisation for Legal Metrology (OIML from the French “Organisation Internationale de Métrologie Légale”) is housed in a non-descript office in the Rue Turgot in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and is about 700 metres the from the Gare du Nord. Like the BIPM, the OIML is an inter-governmental organisation which gives its staff quasi-diplomatic status, though, like the BIPM, French nationals pay French income tax. The OIML works closely with BIPM, the International Standards Organization (ISO) and other international bodies in coordinating metrology around the globe, with each organisation having its own specific role.
Continue reading “International Organisation for Legal Metrology”What are binary prefixes?
When four new SI prefixes were added to the International System of Units (SI) in November 2022, one of the main reasons cited for their need was for their use in data science, where the numbers involved in describing quantities of information have become ever larger. e.g. The amount of data generated by the internet is projected to hit 175 zettabytes by 2025.
Universal metric or particular imperial?
Whether it is twips for typographic screen measurements, hands for horses’ heights or furlongs for horse racing, many imperial units are used for specific purposes. By contrast, the International System of Units (SI), the modern version of the metric system, is based on the principle that each measurable phenomenon has one basic named unit and all the multiples and subdivisions of the unit then follow the same logical structure using prefixes.
Continue reading “Universal metric or particular imperial?”Metric system can meet all astronomers’ needs
The metre used with the appropriate prefix is capable of measuring vast distances across the universe and the tiniest particles in the universe. These prefixes remove the need to use enormous numbers with lots of trailing zeroes. So why do astronomers continue to use astronomical units (AU), light years and parsecs? These non-standard units can be replaced by the metric unit of length, the metre, with the appropriate prefix.
Continue reading “Metric system can meet all astronomers’ needs”Why Progress uses dual measurements in their sample applications
Progress Software Corporation (Progress) is a multinational company that provides software for developing and deploying business applications. I came across one of their sample applications that uses dual temperature measurements and wondered why it uses two temperature scales when one would be enough. I asked Progress about this. Read on to find out their response to my query.
Continue reading “Why Progress uses dual measurements in their sample applications”Proposal for a British Technical Keyboard
Martin Vlietstra proposes a new British technical keyboard that includes non-breaking spaces and some common characters used for metric symbols. In his proposal, he considered various categories of user and using the restriction of inline Unicode characters, has proposed a keyboard that will not only handle all the characters needed by SI, but will also handle many of the characters needed for chemical formulae, and includes Greek characters such as ‘π’, ‘θ’ and other commonly used symbols from mathematics and physics including ‘×’, ‘÷’ and ‘±’. He uses the standard British keyboard as the basis for his proposal and explains how a lot of new characters can be supported using key combinations with the Alt Gr key. It covers a lot more than the extra characters for the correct display of metric symbols.
Continue reading “Proposal for a British Technical Keyboard”NASA Voyager 2 reports make poor use of the metric system
In the first half of August 2023, there were reports about NASA accidentally losing contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft after sending the wrong command and later reports about regaining contact a few days later. Distances of spacecraft from Earth were expressed in billions of kilometres (as well as billions of miles). One thing that NASA and the media ignored is that the common prefixes of the metric system for the extremely large and the extremely small make the use of astronomical numbers unnecessary unlike the imperial system. This is one big advantage that the metric system has over the imperial system.
Continue reading “NASA Voyager 2 reports make poor use of the metric system”Government accepts CE mark indefinitely in nod to common standards
From the end of 2024, the British Government was planning to impose a requirement for goods to carry a new UK-only UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark. Manufacturers who used to need only a conformité européenne (CE) mark for all European countries would have had to meet separate safety standards for the UKCA mark just for the UK and a CE mark for the rest of Europe. After opposition from industry, the Government has backed down and decided to allow the European Union’s CE mark for the UK market indefinitely in a nod to the need for common standards. Will the Government accept the same logic for the use of the common global measurement system known as SI, the modern metric system?
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Metric Views 