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Date:      Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:59:49 +1030
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Jens Schweikhardt <schweikh@schweikhardt.net>
Cc:        Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>, Matt Dillon <dillon@FreeBSD.org>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Abbreviating units (was: cvs commit: src/sys/isa sio.c)
Message-ID:  <20020107105949.H45844@wantadilla.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020106152104.A4955@schweikhardt.net>
References:  <200201060458.g064w9626629@freefall.freebsd.org> <200201060550.g065oGn35131@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <20020106152104.A4955@schweikhardt.net>

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On Sunday,  6 January 2002 at 15:21:04 +0100, Jens Schweikhardt wrote:
> FYI,
>
> # <mode type="anal-retentive">
> # The symbol for `second' is `s'.  `S' is `siemens', the unit of
> # conductivity.  When the Greek letter mu is not available, the prefix
> # `micro-' is symbolized `mc'.
> #
> # The symbol for `hertz' is `Hz'.  `hz' is meaningless.
> # </mode>
>
> There's even an easily remembered rule to capitalization of units (in
> Physics): if the unit is named after a person, it's capitalized, else in
> lower case. So we have capitalized Hertz, Volts, Faradays, Webers, Ohms,
> Siemens, Amperes, Ångströms, Coulombs, Watts, Newtons, Joules, Kelvins,
> etc and lowercased seconds, meters, parsecs, barns, ergs, etc.

In Australia, they use "L" to represent litres.  The Commonwealth
Style Guide claims that this is the correct international
abbreviation.  I don't know anywhere else where it's a capital, but
that doesn't mean it's wrong this way (just looks it :-).  Can anybody
confirm or deny?

> Information technology is a different beast, however. You can't tell
> without context whether b is bits or bytes.

I'd always believed it was bits.  Bytes are B.

Greg
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