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RE: What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a "kilometer"?

• To: costello@m..., xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a "kilometer"?
• From: Laurent.SABARTHEZ@c...
• Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 15:02:01 +0200

Hi all,

Excuse me, but this thread makes me feel as if I were attending a
second-grade academic dispute in a third-grade university in 1300 A.D. or
so.

Aren't kilometers measurement units, by any chance?

If so, may I remind you that they are called "units" because they are just
convenient short-cuts for "ratios" (fractions -- remember, "rational
numbers").

Now, what about "kilometer" as a conventional name (Roger perhaps would like
to call it a "label") for this ratio, "length" as a property of a tangible
entity (the Yang Tze River), that amounts to an approximation of a rational
number?

"El sueño de la razón produce monstruos" (F. Goya)

Regards
--
Laurent Sabarthez


-----Original Message-----
From: Roger L. Costello [mailto:costello@m...]
Sent: jeudi 17 juillet 2003 13:00
To: xml-dev@l...
Cc: Costello,Roger L.
Subject:  What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a
"kilometer"?


Hi Folks,

Consider this statement:

  "The length of the Yangtze River is 6300 kilometers."

What is a "kilometer"?

1. Is kilometer a class?  Is 6300 an instance of the kilometer class?
     kilometer class: {..., 6300, ...}

2. Is kilometer a function? e.g., kilometer(Yangtze) --> 6300
   In general: kilometer(physical object) --> number
   "The kilometer function maps a physical object to a number."

3. Is kilometer a property? e.g., a property of the Yangtze River 
   is kilometer (this doesn't quite sound right; perhaps there's
   another way of expressing this that is more natural?)

4. Is kilometer a label?  If so, then what's a label?

Or is it something else?  /Roger


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