[LON-CAPA-users] Allowed Units and Conversions

Guy Albertelli II lon-capa-users@mail.lon-capa.org
Thu, 9 Feb 2006 16:13:03 -0500 (EST)


Hi Mark,

> LON-CAPA can typically identify equivalent units. We're hitting the part 
> of the year where things can get rather strange. We'll obviously 
> experiment with what works, but is there a general rule or set of rules 
> about what units will be recognized as equivalent? (I'm presuming this 
> one's for Gerd, Guy or Ed 8) )

We decompose every down to it's base definition (in SI base units 
 m, s, kg, A, K, mol, cd, dB)

And reduce and then see if they are the same and what the factor for
conversion is.

> For example:
> 
> J/C =? V
> N/C =? V/m
> F =? C/V

yep on these 3 

> Pa =? N/m

capa.units says that Pa is a N/m^2

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictP.html

Pascals is a newton per square meter. So no these aren't the same.

> As an aside, is J/kg*K interpreted as
> 
> J*K/kg or J/(kg*K)?

J*K/kg

(Instructors can now also use () in their specification of a unit (as
of version 1.3 or 2.0 ...))

-- 
guy@albertelli.com   0-7-1-8-27,137