From: Paul Giaccone (paulg_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-08 12:36:14
Martin Bonner wrote:
> Paul Giaccone Sent:
>
>
>> Martin Bonner wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Giaccone Sent:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Centi-, deci-, deca- and hecto- are not officially part of SI
>>>> nomenclature.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> That's not what the Bureau Internatoinal des Poids et Mesures
>>> (http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter3/prefixes.html) says.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Interesting... I stand corrected. But are they in official scientific
>> use?
>>
>>>> Does the second officially take any prefix? Can you talk about a
>>>> "megasecond",
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Yes. (Although it is EXTREMELY unusual).
>>>
>>>
>> Quoting your source back at you, Martin... according to the section at
>> the bottom of the page, you can't officially say "megasecond".
>>
>> Paul
>>
> Are you refering to the text:
> "Prefix names and symbols are [...] never used with the units of time:
> minute, min; hour, h; day, d."
>
> I read that section as saying you can't use mega with minute, hour, and
> day. So megasecond is OK, but kilohour is not. (If you read it as
> applying to ALL units of time, it means you can't use millisecond either
> - which would be silly!)
>
>
Yes, that's quite true. But I think you can also interpret it as meaning
(even if it does not actually say this explicitly) that SI prefixes are
not used with multiples of a second ("megasecond", etc), (but are OK
with submultiples, like you say) and that "minute", etc, should be used
instead.
Paul