Message-Id: <9202121642.AA09791@relay1.UU.NET>
Date:         Wed, 12 Feb 1992 10:35:46 GMT
Reply-To: Ivan A Derzhanski <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!iad>
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!LOJBAN>
From: Ivan A Derzhanski <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!iad>
Subject:      Billions
To: John Cowan <cowan@snark.thyrsus.com>
In-Reply-To:  CJ FINE's message of Tue,
              11 Feb 92 17:13:20 GMT <13659.9202111713@mail.bradford.ac.uk>
Status: RO

>  From: CJ FINE <C.J.Fine@bradford>
>  Date: Tue, 11 Feb 92 17:13:20 GMT
>
>  Ivan answers me:
>  >
>  > >  Date:        Tue, 11 Feb 1992 09:17:37 GMT
>  > >  From: CJ FINE <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD>
>
>  I observe that for any particular quantity, only a
>  certain range of values (perhaps 6 or at most 12 orders) are commonly used.

But don't forget that non-SI units are commonly used in many areas.
How many angstroems ({\AA}, 1E-10m) are there in a light year?  If
both are converted to metres, I'm afraid we'll need a range of more
than 12 orders.

>  I have never heard anybody use Mm (megametres), still less larger multiples;

That's because it would sound odd in English, where we talk of
thousands of kilometres instead.  But in Lojban, where nothing is odd
if it makes sense, there is no reason not to call 1000km a megametre.

>  likewise, I have never come across <...> Mg (megagrams)

It is because English has a word "tonne".  Again, in Lojban there is
no reason for not calling a tonne a megagramme.

>  <...> or exa-, femto- or atto- anything.

Neither have I, and I wonder if anyone has.  By the way, it is really
illogical to have a word for `atto-' but none for a thousandth part of it.

>  Added to which, the two most common metric systems each take as one of
>  their fundamental units something which appears to be derived
>  (centimetre in CGS, kilogram in MKS).

Looks like a gramme is too light for a metre, and a metre too long for
a gramme.  :-)  Seriously, in SI a gramme probably ought to be called
a millikilogramme.

>  All in all the whole thing is a mess.

The world is a mess in the first place.

>  > {gigdo} must be glossed as `1E9', or `10^9' in LaTeX.

Substitute "should" for "must" here.

We really should have a way to express numbers in exponential notation
in Lojban, without resorting to naming the exponentiation operation.

Ivan