Representation of Derived Units in UnitsML (revised December 8, 2006) Peter J. Linstrom∗ December 8, 2006 ∗phone: (301) 975-5422,DRAFT e-mail:
[email protected] 1 INTRODUCTION 12/8/06 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Why this convention is needed 2 3 Information needed to define a unit 3 4 Proposed XML encoding 4 5 Important conventions 7 6 Potential problems 8 7 Possible alternatives 10 A Multiplicative prefixes 12 B SI units and units acceptable for use with the SI 14 C non-SI Units 19 1 Introduction This document describes a proposed convention for defining derived units in terms of their base units. This convention is intended for use in the UnitsML markup language to allow a precise definition of a wide range of units. The goal of this convention is to improve interoperability among applications and databases which use derived units based on commonly encountered base units. It is understoodDRAFT that not all units can be represented using this convention. It is, however, Representation of Derived Units in UnitsML (revised December 8, 2006) Page 1 2 WHY THIS CONVENTION IS NEEDED 12/8/06 anticipated that a wide range of scientific and engineering units of measure can be represented with this convention. The convention consists of representing the unit in terms of multiplicative combinations of base units. For example the unit centimeter per second squared would be represented in terms of the following: 1. The unit meter with the prefix centi raised to the power 1. 2. The unit second raised to the power −2.