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Talk:Conversion of units/Archive 2017

< Talk:Conversion of units
Latest comment: 7 years ago by Quondum in topic abbreviations being called symbols


Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi. Just submitting the following external link for review: www.wikiunits.org. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.154.162.234 (talk) 17:36, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Horsepower-hour

Latest comment: 7 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

This article has horsepower-hour in the wrong section. Energy used over time, by definition, is power. Although some resource materials use power and energy interchangeably, they are quite different, and horsepower-hour belongs in the power section. 50.64.119.38 (talk) 02:11, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Horsepower is power, not energy. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:18, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
and horsepower-hour is energy, not power. ==Wtshymanski (talk) 02:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

If I'm wrong I apologize. But hp and kilowatts are power. Does that mean a kilowatt-hour is energy as well? 50.64.119.38 (talk) 04:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes. That's why monthly electric bills in the USA are stated in kilowatt-hours. Jc3s5h (talk) 04:40, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Suppose a 1-horsepower engine works for an hour. It is working at a rate of 1 hp. To do that for an hour requires a certain amount of energy. Using {{convert}} ({{convert|1|hph|J|abbr=off}}) shows 1 horsepower-hour (2,700,000 joules). Johnuniq (talk) 04:44, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

You're right. I'm wrong. I found a pretty good explanation from a columnist for the Calgary Herald. It's a footnote in an ongoing debate he's having about the carbon footprint, from construction to decommission, of nuclear power plants. TY for your time. 50.64.119.38 (talk) 05:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC) http://www.cuug.ab.ca/branderr/nuclear/petajoule.html

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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abbreviations being called symbols

Latest comment: 7 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

Many of the "symbols" in this article seem to have been compiled without citation. These should be sourced reliably (and not from a dictionary: a dictionary is quite unreliable when it comes to metrology). At present, abbreviations rather than symbols have been presented in the 'symbols' column. For example, a source cited in the article (NIST) gives units of area ft2, yd2 etc, not cu ft and cu yd as given in this article. The same source also makes it clear that there is a distinction between symbols and abbreviations: "Squares and cubes of customary but not of metric units are sometimes expressed by the use of abbreviations rather than symbols. For example, sq ft means square foot, and cu ft means cubic foot." IMO, calling abbreviations "symbols" does not belong in an encyclopaedia. —Quondum 01:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Two columns are needed, one with widely used abbreviations (eg AU, psi, yr, , cu ft. etc) and another with international standard symbols (eg ua, lbf/in^2, a, ft^3, etc). Just because an abbreviation is widely used does not make it a symbol. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:29, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
I also strongly agree. I was born in England in 1948, and I do not believe I ever saw the "ft^2" type of "symbol" (?is it?) until relatively recently. In Engl(and)ish, "ten foot square" means a square of side 10 ft. and area 100 sq. ft., while "ten square feet" is a (different) measure of area. I am confident that if I had written "ft^2" in an exam it would simply have been marked wrong. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Imaginatorium, I'm having difficulty understanding what you are saying. You say that you agree, then seem to argue against the point. Please note that the quote I produced underscores that "sq ft" is not a symbol, regardless of frequency of its use. —Quondum 11:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Quondum Sorry, I wasn't very clear. "sq. ft." is an abbreviation, and is as far as I know the only standard way of representing the unit in England until at least 1970-something. AFAIK, the term "symbol" only started to occur with the introduction of SI units; I do not know whether in any "official" sense "ft^2" is a "symbol" for the same unit. You can read me making exactly the same complaint (of not making the distinction) on my user page critique of the books by Cardarelli. Cardarelli is an Italian speaker, I believe; his book in some versions is just written by him, while in other versions it is "translated" by someone else. So you have an Italian guess at what might happen in English, translated by someone who probably just looking words up in a dictionary, and we are supposed to regard this as a "reliable" source, because it was put in a "proper printed book". For example, we are told that the "symbol" for the archaic unit "wey" is "UK wy" (which we would have to call an "elongation" rather than an "abbreviation"...) Imaginatorium (talk) 13:47, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

When deciding whether a symbol or abbreviation is sourced, be sure to look at any citation at the end of the row; such a citation is apt to support all or most of the information in the row. A practical difficulty is that a source that's published by an organization that isn't obsessed with the distinction between symbols and abbreviations may not specify whether the characters in question are a symbol or abbreviation. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

We should keep in mind that in an encyclopedia, we are dealing with concepts rather than in words. This is roughly what WP:NOTDIC says, albeit with respect to articles as a whole. In this spirit, we should not be concerned with what is called a symbol or not by any source, but with what is meant when WP labels something as a symbol. The formalized concept of the symbol of a unit in modern metrology as an internationally accepted/standardized, language-independent notation seems to have become quite prevalent in standards, governing bodies and in general use, and Wikipedia's articles on units seem to be predominantly in line with this. Notwithstanding the recent emergence (or spread beyond SI) of this precise meaning, it seems reasonable for WP to be using the term in this sense. Assuming that my argument here is accepted, it seems reasonable to adhere to this meaning when populating a column named "Symbol". I'm sorry if this is a bit of a treatise, but it tries to pin down what I find problematic in the vagueness in Jc3s5h's reply. I think the answer is fairly straightforward: if something is not recognized as a symbol by an organization or standard that has the appropriate authority in metrology, we should not be presenting it as a unit symbol, since to do so would constitute OR. It is quite admissible to leave the "Symbol" column blank for a unit.
As to citations, very few rows in the table have any citations. So at the least, we have a large number of completely unsourced "symbols" (and even units). —Quondum 18:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
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