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Subject:Re: Use of K (thousand) and M (million) From:"John M. Gear" <catalyst -at- PACIFIER -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:07:00 PST
With respect to SI units, can anyone say if there's an ANSI or other
authoritative standard accepted worldwide (or in North America anyway) ...
maybe an ISO publication number?
This thread has bothered me because the discussion seems to be about K's and
M's, not k's and M's, as I would have thought.
In the dusty recesses of my mind I thought I stored the fact that SI unit
symbols were usually only in uppercase if they represented a person's name
(thus K is for Kelvin, after Lord Kelvin, W is for Watt or Weber, Hz is for
Hertz, etc.). Units in lowercase represent units of scale, such as m for
milli, c for centi, d for deci, k for kilo. I think there are also some
anomalies, such as G for Giga because g is grams.
Thanks.
John Gear
P.S.: Any factual errors in the above conceded in advance. The question is
not *whether* I'm incorrect, it's what is the source of correct information.
Thanks!
