{"id":70,"date":"2004-09-21T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-21T09:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/?p=70"},"modified":"2004-09-21T09:14:00","modified_gmt":"2004-09-21T09:14:00","slug":"writing-si-units-and-symbols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/writing-si-units-and-symbols\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing SI units and symbols"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quite a few of us do not write the SI units correctly. If you are a Physics or Chemisty student, and still remember what you studied in school, you&#8217;ll know the importance of getting your units and symbols right.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong> Important in SI:<\/strong><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<\/p>\n<li> The short forms for SI units (such as mm for millimeter) are called <b>symbols<\/b>, <i>not<\/i> abbreviations.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li> SI symbols <i>never end with a period<\/i> unless they are the last word in a sentence.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>RIGHT:<\/b> 20 mm, 10 kg<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>WRONG:<\/b> 20 mm., 10 kg.<br \/>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> SI symbols should be preceded by digits and <i>a space must separate the digits from the symbol<\/i>.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>RIGHT:<\/b> It was 300 mm wide. The millimeter width was given.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>WRONG:<\/b> It was 300mm wide. The mm width was given.<br \/>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Symbols <i>always are written in the singular form<\/i> (even when more than one is meant).<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>RIGHT:<\/b> 1 mm, 500 mm, 1 kg, 36 kg<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>WRONG:<\/b> 500 mms, 36 kgs<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>BUT:<\/b> It is correct to pluralize written-out metric unit names: 25 kilograms, 250 milliliters<br \/>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> The symbol for a compound unit that is <i>a quotient of two units is indicated by a solidus<\/i> or by a negative exponent.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>RIGHT:<\/b> km\/h  or km&#183;h<sup>-1<\/sup> (for kilometers per hour)<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>WRONG:<\/b> kmph or kph (do <i>not<\/i> use p as a symbol for &#8220;per&#8221;.)<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>BUT:<\/b> It is correct to say or write &#8220;kilometers per hour&#8221;.<br \/>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> The meaning of an SI symbol can be changed if you substitute a capital letter for a lower case letter.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>RIGHT:<\/b> mm (for millimeter, which means 1\/1000 of a meter)<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><b>WRONG:<\/b> MM or Mm (M is the prefix for mega, which means one million; a megameter is a million meters)<br \/>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/ol>\n<p>Links:<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www2.potsdam.edu\/marteljm\/teaching\/pchem\/convfact.htm\">potsdam.edu<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.poynton.com\/notes\/units\/\">poynton.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/lamar.colostate.edu\/~hillger\/correct.htm\">lamar.colostate.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Write to me: Suman[at]sumankumar[dot]com<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">\n<map name=\"google_ad_map_061219083750040921091400\">\n<area shape=\"rect\" href=\"http:\/\/imageads.googleadservices.com\/pagead\/imgclick\/061219083750040921091400?pos=0\" coords=\"1,2,367,28\"\/>\n<area shape=\"rect\" href=\"http:\/\/services.google.com\/feedback\/abg\" coords=\"384,10,453,23\"\/><\/map>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" usemap=\"#google_ad_map_061219083750040921091400\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/imageads.googleadservices.com\/pagead\/ads?format=468x30_aff_img&amp;client=ca-pub-1259014363012020&amp;channel=9138153052&amp;output=png&amp;cuid=061219083750040921091400&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Ftw-india.blogspot.com%2F2004%2F09%2Fwriting-si-units-and-symbols.html\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quite a few of us do not write the SI units correctly. If you are a Physics or Chemisty student, and still remember what you studied in school, you&#8217;ll know the importance of getting your units and symbols right. Important in SI: The short forms for SI units (such as mm for millimeter) are called [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"jetpack-portfolio-admin-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Suman Kumar","author_link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/author\/suman-kumar\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Quite a few of us do not write the SI units correctly. If you are a Physics or Chemisty student, and still remember what you studied in school, you&#8217;ll know the importance of getting your units and symbols right. Important in SI: The short forms for SI units (such as mm for millimeter) are called&hellip;","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Gbk8-18","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":824,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/october-rain\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":0},"title":"October Rain","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"October 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Earlier, the highest annual rainfall record was set in 1998 when the City received 1,432.2 mm of rainfall. This year, the figures have already crossed 1435.3 mm. The wettest October title was clinched when Bangalore crossed the recorded high of 522.2 mm set in 1956.\" [Via SSSB]'Bangalore Mumbai-ed' screamed the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"godavaripalya","src":"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/26\/56250690_299bc618e8_m.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":343,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/07\/wedding-pictures-via-sam\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":1},"title":"Wedding Pictures (Via: Sam)","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"July 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Click on images to see bigger pictures. I have tried to explain the rituals in the pics; if there are any inaccuracies, forgive me, and I'd be grateful if you suggested corrections. Suman. The wedding area. Consists of the couple, priest, and a holy fire. 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I have another\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;general&quot;","block_context":{"text":"general","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}