Metric equivalent of "mileage"?
Rod
Is there a metric equivalent of mileage (or milage)? Metrage or
kilometrage don't sound right, and "distance" doesn't convey the
required sense of the distance being measurted in large units. Any
suggestions?
Rod
Pierre Jelenc
I don't know that there is one. In France (and in French) the notion of
distance travelled per unit volume of fuel is expressed the other way
around, as volume of fuel needed for a certain distance, so that miles per
gallon become liters per 100 kilometers. The word used to refer to this is
then "consumption" ("consommation").
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
New York City | Home Office
Beer Guide | Records
http://www.nycbeer.org/ | http://www.web-ho.com/
Donna Richoux
Pierre Jelenc <rc...@panix.com> wrote:
> Rod <fcon...@netvigator.com> writes:
> > Is there a metric equivalent of mileage (or milage)? Metrage or
> > kilometrage don't sound right, and "distance" doesn't convey the
> > required sense of the distance being measurted in large units. Any
> > suggestions?
>
> I don't know that there is one. In France (and in French) the notion of
> distance travelled per unit volume of fuel is expressed the other way
> around, as volume of fuel needed for a certain distance, so that miles per
> gallon become liters per 100 kilometers. The word used to refer to this is
> then "consumption" ("consommation").
But what about the sort of mileage as in "This car has low mileage,
only 35,000 miles on it"? Is there any English speaking country that has
gone totally metric and has a new word for that?
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Alan Pollock
Donna Richoux (tr...@euronet.nl) wrote:
In Quebec, I've heard some who spoke French use the term 'kilometrage'. It
rolled easily off the tongue. Nex
__________________________________________________________________________
"Ah, if in this world there were no such thing as cherry blossoms, perhaps
then in springtime our hearts would be at peace." Ariwara no Narihira
__________________________________________________________________________
Scott Robert Dawson
On Wed, 03 Dec 1997 15:38:24 GMT, fcon...@netvigator.com (Rod) wrote:
>Is there a metric equivalent of mileage (or milage)? Metrage or
>kilometrage don't sound right, and "distance" doesn't convey the
>required sense of the distance being measurted in large units...
Here in Toronto, we say "mileage" even when the distance is in
kilometres. Occaisionally I will hear someone say "kilometrage", but
it dosn't seem to have caught on. The word "mileage" is becoming
separated from its unit-based origins...
Scott Robert Dawson
<suns...@interlog.com.antispamtext>
Note: remove the characters .antispamtext from
this address to get my real address...
Peter Moylan
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>But what about the sort of mileage as in "This car has low mileage,
>only 35,000 miles on it"? Is there any English speaking country that has
>gone totally metric and has a new word for that?
The car yards around here have signs on the cars saying
"LOW KMS". (Sometimes accompanied by exclamation marks
and apostrophes.)
Not that our car yards can reliably be taken as arbiters
of English usage. Lately, many of them have also started
displaying signs saying "FREE AIR".
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://www.ee.newcastle.edu.au/users/staff/peter/Moylan.html
Irina Tkachova
Rod <fcon...@netvigator.com> writes:
> Is there a metric equivalent of mileage (or milage)? Metrage or
> kilometrage don't sound right, and "distance" doesn't convey the
> required sense of the distance being measurted in large units. Any
> suggestions?
In Russian there is a word "kilometrage" stressed on the last syllable. Not
only do drivers use it, but it is included in the New English-Russian
Dictionary in three volumes, Moscow 1993. I do not know whether the
compilers of this dictionary just transliterated the Russian word or
whether they found it in some English source. I looked up this word in a
number of British and American dictionaries, but only found the noun -
kilometer/re and the adjective - kilometric(al).
Irina Tkachova, Moscow.
In the beginning was the Word (and now - WORD 7)
tka...@glasnet.ru
Donna Richoux
Polar <s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Count your blessings! Here (at least in the LA area) air and water
> are no longer free at gas stations -- not for quite a few years. You
> have to put a quarter in a machine located at the back of the gas
> station and hope you can fill your tires (or radiator) before it runs
> out. I think it should be illegal to charge for air & water!
Oh, but I sympathized with the service station manager who, trying to
stay in business during volatile times, said in frustration, "You think
air should be free? Fine, go BLOW into your tires!"
You're not paying for the air, you're paying for the pressure.
(Said she smugly, owning only a bicycle and a hand-pump in this land of
windmills.)
Best -- Donna Richoux
Peter Moylan
Polar <s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On 4 Dec 1997 04:59:02 GMT, pe...@eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (Peter
>Moylan) wrote:
>
>>Not that our car yards can reliably be taken as arbiters
>>of English usage. Lately, many of them have also started
>>displaying signs saying "FREE AIR".
>
>are no longer free at gas stations -- not for quite a few years. You
>have to put a quarter in a machine located at the back of the gas
>station and hope you can fill your tires (or radiator) before it runs
>out. I think it should be illegal to charge for air & water!
I see that I've been guilty of obscurity. Those FREE AIR signs
actually refer to free air-conditioning. (When you buy a car
from them, you get air-conditioning for nothing. It is, I suppose,
a sneaky way of saying that they'll charge for the air conditioner
even if you don't take it.)
This started quite suddenly. For some time I didn't know what
the ads meant. I'm not sure what made the salesdroids think that
all of their potential customers would be able to guess that
"air" meant "air conditioning".
Pat Frap
Donna Richoux wrote:
>
> Polar <s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
[...]
> > out. I think it should be illegal to charge for air & water!
> You're not paying for the air, you're paying for the pressure.
I think you're mostly paying for replacement of hoses and nozzles
which I suspect are damaged and stolen at a much higher rate now
than in the good old days.
Steve MacGregor
Rod <fcon...@netvigator.com> wrote in article
<34857c62...@news.netvigator.com>...
<<Is there a metric equivalent of mileage (or milage)? Metrage or
kilometrage don't sound right, and "distance" doesn't convey the
required sense of the distance being measurted in large units. Any
suggestions?>>
"Mileage".
"What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get,
Pierre?"
"So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
--
(Reply to SPMacGregor at NetValue dot Net)
---------------------------------------------------------
Whom are you going to call? GRAMMAR BUSTERS!!!
---------------------------------------------------------
Rainer Thonnes
In article <01bd025e$929bb020$dc9c...@goodnet.goodnet.com>,
"Steve MacGregor" <Spa...@Spam.Spam.Spam> writes:
>
> "What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get, Pierre?"
> "So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
Why not just say "about 6% of a square millimeter"?
--
I don't know whether there really is a ukol.com.
In any case I'm not there, I'm at dcs.ed.ac.uk.
Mike Barnes
In alt.usage.english, Rainer Thonnes <r...@ukol.com> spake thuswise:
>In article <01bd025e$929bb020$dc9c...@goodnet.goodnet.com>,
>"Steve MacGregor" <Spa...@Spam.Spam.Spam> writes:
>>
>> "What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get, Pierre?"
>> "So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
>
>Why not just say "about 6% of a square millimeter"?
It never fails to surprise me just how low a typical vehicle's fuel
consumption is, when expressed in those terms. But unless there's a
revolution in the way vehicles are fuelled, this figure is destined to
remain of academic interest only.
--
-- Mike Barnes, Stockport, England.
-- If you post a response to Usenet, please *don't* send me a copy by e-mail.
Robert M. Wilson
In article <slrn68ebsl...@eepjm.newcastle.edu.au>,
pe...@eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan) wrote:
>Polar <s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>On 4 Dec 1997 04:59:02 GMT, pe...@eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (Peter
>>Moylan) wrote:
>>
>>>Not that our car yards can reliably be taken as arbiters
>>>of English usage. Lately, many of them have also started
>>>displaying signs saying "FREE AIR".
>
>I see that I've been guilty of obscurity. Those FREE AIR signs
>actually refer to free air-conditioning. (When you buy a car
>from them, you get air-conditioning for nothing. It is, I suppose,
>a sneaky way of saying that they'll charge for the air conditioner
>even if you don't take it.)
The confusion is undertandable. When I was young (in NSW, including two years
in Newcastle) many gas (petrol) stations advertised "free air" as a customer
inducement. They, unlike their competitors, had an air pump for tires (tyres).
Now, in N.Am., it means that the car for sale has air conditioning. But it is
being used less often as most sedans have it anyway. It is a compulsory extra.
Bill Baldwin
Robert M. Wilson noted (regarding "free air"):
> Now, in N.Am., it means that the car for sale has air conditioning. But
it is
> being used less often as most sedans have it anyway. It is a compulsory
extra.
Or, in the spirit of the oxymoron thread, a compulsory option.
--
Bill Baldwin (Remove NOSPAM from address to reply)
Steve MacGregor
Rainer Thonnes <r...@ukol.com> wrote in article
<EKvnsE.7vx.0.sta...@dcs.ed.ac.uk>...
<<Why not just say "about 6% of a square millimeter"?>>
Such an idea has actually been proposed.
Mike Ford
>In alt.usage.english, Rainer Thonnes <r...@ukol.com> spake thuswise:
>>In article <01bd025e$929bb020$dc9c...@goodnet.goodnet.com>,
>>"Steve MacGregor" <Spa...@Spam.Spam.Spam> writes:
>>>
>>> "What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get, Pierre?"
>>> "So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
>>
>>Why not just say "about 6% of a square millimeter"?
>
>It never fails to surprise me just how low a typical vehicle's fuel
>consumption is, when expressed in those terms. But unless there's a
>revolution in the way vehicles are fuelled, this figure is destined to
>remain of academic interest only.
Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
often is) about 47mpg (British). VW have just made a splash
about launching a "3 litre" car in the not-too-distant future --
i.e. one which uses 3l/100km (does 94mpg).
-- --
Mike Ford m...@mcgoff.karoo.co.uk
Leeds, UK
Lee Lester
MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
to the gallon. Anyway, it's still a thirsty beast. So send it back to
Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
lee lester
Mike Barnes
In alt.usage.english, Mike Ford <m...@mcgoff.karoo.co.uk> spake thuswise:
>On Mon, 8 Dec 1997 19:00:12 +0000, Mike Barnes
><mi...@exodus.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In alt.usage.english, Rainer Thonnes <r...@ukol.com> spake thuswise:
>>>In article <01bd025e$929bb020$dc9c...@goodnet.goodnet.com>,
>>>"Steve MacGregor" <Spa...@Spam.Spam.Spam> writes:
>>>>
>>>> "What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get, Pierre?"
>>>> "So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
>>>
>>>Why not just say "about 6% of a square millimeter"?
>>
>>It never fails to surprise me just how low a typical vehicle's fuel
>>consumption is, when expressed in those terms. But unless there's a
>>revolution in the way vehicles are fuelled, this figure is destined to
>>remain of academic interest only.
>
>about launching a "3 litre" car in the not-too-distant future --
>i.e. one which uses 3l/100km (does 94mpg).
Your calculations look reasonable, but I think you miss my point.
If cars received fuel by scooping it out of a trough as they went along,
the fuel consumption expressed as an *area* would indicate the required
cross-sectional area of the trough. This would actually be a small
percentage of a square millimetre - which I find a surprisingly small
area. But because vehicle development does not seem to be heading in
the direction of roadside troughs, measurment of fuel consumption in
terms of area seems destined to remain a minority interest.
Martin Murray
Lee Lester (lee.l...@guildnet.org) wrote:
: MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
: MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
:
: I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
: but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
: mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
: to the gallon. Anyway, it's still a thirsty beast. So send it back to
: Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
Sorry, Lee. You've turned MF's 6l (six litres) into 61 (sixty-one). On my
screen I can just see the difference, maybe you can't.
Returning to the original question.
>>> "What kind of gas milage does that new vehicle of yours get, Pierre?"
>>> "So far, about 6 liters per 100 kilometers."
Surely the answer to "what mileage" (note spelling) should be miles per
gallon,or miles per litre, not this new fangled litres per 100km, or, as
others have pointed out, square millimetres.
Martin Murray
Markus Laker
Mike Ford wrote:
> MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
> MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
lee.l...@guildnet.org (Lee Lester) replied:
> I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
> but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
> mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
> to the gallon.
I think you misread Mike's minuscule ell for the numeral 1. Try
switching to a font that distinguishes them. Mike's arithmetic was spot
on.
Markus Laker
--
My real address doesn't include a Christian name.
Emailed copies of responses are very much appreciated.
Art
Lee Lester wrote:
>
> MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
> MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
>
> but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
> mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
> Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
Sorry, mate. 'MF' was bang-on. Consider this quick "sanity check": if
9.5l/100km ~= 30mpg, then 6l/100km is *better* mileage, since you're
going the same distance on less fuel.
Anyway, doing a little dimensional analysis:
100 km 4.546 l 0.621 mi
------- x ------- x -------- = 47 mpg
6 l gal(UK) km
HTH
Geoff Butler
Lee Lester <lee.l...@guildnet.org> writes:
>MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
>MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
>
>I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
>but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
>mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
>to the gallon. Anyway, it's still a thirsty beast. So send it back to
>Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
Oops. That's not '61', it's '6l' (ie lower('6L')), so you're in complete
agreement give or take an order of magnitude.
-ler
Lee Lester
> I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
> but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
> mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
> to the gallon.
I think you misread Mike's minuscule ell for the numeral 1. Try
[C]ontinue, [N]onStop, [S]top? [C]
switching to a font that distinguishes them. Mike's arithmetic was spot
on.
Thanks for pointing out my error. I'm afraid, as my note shows, that I
am used to the capital 'L' or its cursive version as the recognised
abbreviation for litre.
lee lester
Lee Lester
Yes, his arithmetic was right on. However, I ws thrown by his placing
the 'l' right next to the number and using the lower case instead of the
capital 'L' which is the form.suggested by the international body which
recommends such things.
lee lester
>I don't have a conersion table in front of me
> but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
> mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
> to the gallon. Anyway, it's still a thirsty beast. So send it back to
> Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
>>Sorry, mate. 'MF' was bang on.
Mark Baker
In article <fPKEDnDX...@exodus.co.uk>,
Mike Barnes <mi...@exodus.co.uk> writes:
> area. But because vehicle development does not seem to be heading in
> the direction of roadside troughs, measurment of fuel consumption in
> terms of area seems destined to remain a minority interest.
That's irrelevant.
Acceleration is quoted in metres per second squared. There's no such thing
as a square second.
Work is normally measured in Joules, but a joule is a kilogram metre per
second. There's nothing that's really "per second" about it, that comes from
cancelling the "per second squared" of the acceleration with seconds.
If these kinds of operations on units are normal (and they are), what's
wrong with cancelling the obvious fuel consumption units of cubic metres per
metre to just square metres?
The trough example is just a way to convince unbelievers that square metres
really are a valid way of measuring fuel consumption; it's not really where
the unit comes from.
Rainer Thonnes
> the fuel consumption expressed as an *area* would indicate the required
> cross-sectional area of the trough. This would actually be a small
> percentage of a square millimetre - which I find a surprisingly small
> area.
Ah, but it only takes a convoy of 17 cars to need a whole sqmm, and a mere
thousand of those convoys making ten return trips a week for a year would
require a vast trench one square metre in cross section, representing an
annual fuel requirement of a thousand tonnes-volume (cubic metres) per
km of road. Still surprisingly small?
Another way of looking at it is to consider a drop of fuel, say 60 cubic
millimetres. That would fill a 0.06 sqmm trough to a length of only 1m.
That doesn't seem very far.
> But because vehicle development does not seem to be heading in
> the direction of roadside troughs, measurment of fuel consumption in
> terms of area seems destined to remain a minority interest.
Indeed. Mind you, we do have vehicles which "scoop up" fuel of sorts
from "troughs", though that "fuel" isn't tangible. I refer to trolley
buses, trams, and electric trains.
Mike Ford
>Yes, his arithmetic was right on. However, I ws thrown by his placing
>the 'l' right next to the number and using the lower case instead of the
>capital 'L' which is the form.suggested by the international body which
>recommends such things.
Humph! I writt it the way I were taught at skool!! It just
flowed naturally off my fingertips that way -- never even
stopped to think about it.
I seem to recall that L meant something else entirely (lumens?).
If, for whatever reason, L no longer has another meaning (or,
indeed, my memory is faulty and it never did), it makes more
sense to use L for litres for the very good reason I've just
inadvertently demonstrated.
Gene Nygaard
fredd...@tcp.co.uk (Markus Laker) wrote:
>Mike Ford wrote:
>> MF>Not really -- 6l/100km is, unless my maths is wrong (which it
>> MF>often is) about 47mpg (British).
>lee.l...@guildnet.org (Lee Lester) replied:
>> I'm afraid it is again. I don't have a conersion table in front of me
>> but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
>> mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
>> to the gallon.
>I think you misread Mike's minuscule ell for the numeral 1. Try
>switching to a font that distinguishes them. Mike's arithmetic was spot
>on.
>Markus Laker
That's one reason that there should be a space separating the numbers
from the unit of measure.
This separation is also important for using any of the various search
engines on our computers and on the internet. The space makes the
symbol a separate "word" that can be searched for, often a useful tool
in narrowing down a search (and sometimes particular numbers can do
the same thing, but butting the numbers up to the symbols for the
units of measure screws everything up).
Gene Nygaard
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard
Mike Barnes
In alt.usage.english, Mark Baker <mn...@aziraphale.demon.co.uk> spake
thuswise:
>The trough example is just a way to convince unbelievers that square metres
>really are a valid way of measuring fuel consumption; it's not really where
>the unit comes from.
Uh, on the contrary, I invented the trough example (as in: there aren't
going to be any troughs) was a way to illustrate the fact that area is
*not* a reasonable way to measure fuel consumption. Read back through
the thread if you don't believe me.
I'm beginning feel like King Canute.
Mike Barnes
>writes:
>>
>> If cars received fuel by scooping it out of a trough as they went along,
>> the fuel consumption expressed as an *area* would indicate the required
>> cross-sectional area of the trough. This would actually be a small
>> percentage of a square millimetre - which I find a surprisingly small
>> area.
>
>Ah, but it only takes a convoy of 17 cars to need a whole sqmm, and a mere
>thousand of those convoys making ten return trips a week for a year would
>require a vast trench one square metre in cross section, representing an
>annual fuel requirement of a thousand tonnes-volume (cubic metres) per
>km of road. Still surprisingly small?
Ah yes, I remember "multiplication" from school.
>Another way of looking at it is to consider a drop of fuel, say 60 cubic
>millimetres. That would fill a 0.06 sqmm trough to a length of only 1m.
>That doesn't seem very far.
Obviously "seem" is the important word.
You're talking about practicalities. I'm talking about (my)
impressions. I've actually no interest in reconciling the two. If I
like to gee-whizz something that you consider unremarkable, let me be,
OK?
ObUsage: Watch those "sqmm"s! When I used the term "sqm" in this ng I
was told in no uncertain terms that there was no such thing. By someone
who seemed like a scientist. I ignored him of course.
Mark Baker
In article <xUn$VUG$4mk0...@exodus.co.uk>,
Mike Barnes <mi...@exodus.co.uk> writes:
> Uh, on the contrary, I invented the trough example
Er, I'm pretty sure you didn't invent the trough example. Every time the
issue comes up on usenet someone justifies using mm^2 on the basis that you
could pick up fuel from a trough: you may have been the first to do so but I
doubt it.
Rainer Thonnes
In article <66r40u$8n$3...@aziraphale.demon.co.uk>,
mn...@aziraphale.demon.co.uk (Mark Baker) writes:
>
> Acceleration is quoted in metres per second squared. There's no such thing
> as a square second.
Ah, but the "squared" applies to "per second", not just to "second", so it
doesn't refer to "square second", but at worst to "per square second"
and better to "something per second" where the "something" happens to be
"per second". There's nothing terribly obscure about a rate rate.
> Work is normally measured in Joules, but a joule is a kilogram metre per
> second. There's nothing that's really "per second" about it.
Close. Isn't it square metre killergrams per square second?
Work is force-distance, not force-time, that's impulse and I don't think
there's an honorific unit for that. A kilogram metre per second is the
oomph needed to kick a kilogram to a velocity of one metre per second,
so there *is* something intuitively "per second" about it.
But your point is nonetheless a valid one. It gets a bit weird when you
get to square coulomb seconds per square metre kilogram, which you'll
no doubt recognise as the much-missed Mho.
Mike Barnes
Actually I'm pretty sure I *did* invent the trough example. From what
you say it is clear that at least one other person invented it before
me. I don't recall ever having seen it on Usenet or anywhere else.
The "justification" that you cite seems extremely stupid to me, but
Usenet is a pretty good place for finding stupid justifications. The
justification you quote should not be confused with the purpose for
which I invented the example. I invented it as an improbable scenario
to illustrate my point that area was *not* likely to be a practical
unit of fuel consumption. What I originally said was--
"[U]nless there's a revolution in the way vehicles are fuelled, [area as
a measure of fuel consumption] is destined to remain of academic
interest only."
I thought that was pretty clear, but apparently it wasn't clear enough.
Mark Baker
In article <97121202...@guildnet.org>,
lee.l...@guildnet.org (Lee Lester) writes:
> Yes, his arithmetic was right on. However, I ws thrown by his placing
> the 'l' right next to the number and using the lower case instead of the
> capital 'L' which is the form.suggested by the international body which
> recommends such things.
I don't think it is. I think it's the form suggested by the US body that
recommends such things. I don't think there is an international body that
makes any suggestions about the litre (which isn't an SI unit).
We were taught to use a lower case l at school, and all the bottles and cans
in UK shops use a little l.
Anony
Lee Lester wrote:
>
> Yes, his arithmetic was right on. However, I ws thrown by his placing
> the 'l' right next to the number and using the lower case instead of the
> capital 'L' which is the form.suggested by the international body which
> recommends such things.
>
>
> >I don't have a conersion table in front of me
> > but 9.5 L per 100 km is 30 mpg approx. es 61/100 km, doing a spot of
> > mental arithmetic - which I usually get wrong - about 4.5 miles
> > Wolfsburg, Detroit or Coventry or wherever.
>
Amercian gallon is 3.75 litres.
While British gallon is 4.5 litres.
Lee Lester
> Yes, his arithmetic was right on. However, I ws thrown by his placing
> the 'l' right next to the number and using the lower case instead of
the
> capital 'L' which is the form.suggested by the international body
which
> recommends such things.
>>I don't think it is. I think it's the form suggested by the US body
>>that recommends such things. I don't think there is an international
>>body that makes any suggestions about the litre (which isn't an SI
>>unit).
>>We were taught to use a lower case l at school, and all the bottles
>>and cans in UK shops use a little l.
What was it that someone said about two countries divided by a common
language ... And just as the different billion question was resolved.
lee lester
Stan Brown
In article <67131c$et$5...@aziraphale.demon.co.uk>,
>I don't think it is. I think it's the form suggested by the US body that
>recommends such things. I don't think there is an international body that
>makes any suggestions about the litre (which isn't an SI unit).
_Units of Measurement_, ISO Standards Handbook 2, defines the litre [so
spelt] as 1 dm^3 (exactly) and gives lower-case l as the international
symbol [sic].
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
http://www.concentric.net/%7eBrownsta/
"If you have nothing to say, say nothing." --Yes, Prime Minister
Lee Lester
>Units of Measurement_, ISO Standards Handbook 2, defines the litre [so
>spelt] as 1 dm^3 (exactly) and gives lower-case l as the international
>symbol [sic].
Does it say whether there should be a space between the 'l' and the
number? TIA.
Dean Tiegs
mn...@aziraphale.demon.co.uk (Mark Baker) wrote:
>Work is normally measured in Joules, but a joule is a kilogram metre per
>second. There's nothing that's really "per second" about it, that comes from
>cancelling the "per second squared" of the acceleration with seconds.
It's been a while since I've studied physics, but I don't think that's
the definition of a joule. Because F = ma and the newton is the force
unit, a newton is a kilogram metre per second squared. Then, because
W = Fd and the joule is the work or energy unit, a joule is a kilogram
metre squared per second squared.
However, this doesn't invalidate your point about measuring fuel
consumption in area units. It is scientifcally sound, but I wouldn't
recommend trying to introduce it for common use by the public. It's
too hard to conceptualize, and it makes estimation too difficult. If
you know your fuel tank's volume in litres and the distance you have
to go in kilometres, it's easy to estimate how much of the tank you'll
use if you know the car's fuel consumption in litres per hundred
kilometres, but not if you know it in square millimetres.
--
Dean Tiegs, pronunciation in ASCII IPA [din tiks]
53°33' N, 113°34' W/O, +668 m,
Northeast quarter of section 20, township 52, range 25 west of the 4th meridian,
Quart nord-est de la section 20, canton 52, rang 25 de l'ouest du 4e méridien
Rainer Thonnes
In article <34980326...@news.planet.eon.net>,
dct...@planet.eon.net (Dean Tiegs) writes:
>
> However, this doesn't invalidate your point about measuring fuel
> consumption in area units. It is scientifcally sound, but I wouldn't
> recommend trying to introduce it for common use by the public. It's
> too hard to conceptualize, and it makes estimation too difficult.
The man in the street doesn't actually need to conceptualise the area
unit. He just gets numbers to compare. There's a difference in the
way of thinking about it, though, between the "English" system, which
measures frugality (how far you can go with a given amount of fuel),
and the "European" system, which measures its invers, thirstiness (how
much it will drink to go a given distance).
> If
> you know your fuel tank's volume in litres and the distance you have
> to go in kilometres, it's easy to estimate how much of the tank you'll
> use if you know the car's fuel consumption in litres per hundred
> kilometres, but not if you know it in square millimetres.
But this is a different problem altogether. The car's thirstiness is
a primary issue only when deciding which car or which engine to buy, and to
a lesser extent when tuning it. When it's useful to know what distance
you can achieve with a given fraction of a full tank, you can forget all
this cl/km, mpg, and sqmm nonsense and work in more down-to-earth units.
Just measure the "volume" of the tank in miles, and the car's "fuel
consumption" in what really matters, dollars per month.
That reminds me. Why "litres per 100 km"? Why not "cl/km"?
Stan Brown
[posted and emailed]
In article <97121702...@guildnet.org>, lee.l...@guildnet.org (Lee
There should always be a space between the numerics and the units of
measure. No special rule is given for the "l".
Section 4.5.1 of ISO 1000-1981(E)begins with this paragraph: "Unit
symbols should be printed in roman (upright) type (irrespective of the
type used in the rest of the text), should remain unaltered in the
plural, should be written without a final full stop (period) except for
normal punctuation, e.g. at the end of a sentence, and should be placed
after the complete numerical value in the expression for a quantity,
leaving a space between the numerical value and the unit symbol."
Interestingly, a footnote to table 6 of that standard says that the
symbols "l" and "L" for litre are "on an equal footing". However, table 1
in ISO 31/1-1978 (E) gives only the lower-case "l", as I remarked
earlier. Both are included (with others) in the ISO Standards Handbook 2.