[time-nuts] time-nuts Digest, Vol 63, Issue 52

Mike S mikes at flatsurface.com
Sun Oct 11 16:15:59 UTC 2009


At 11:35 AM 10/11/2009, Magnus Danielson wrote...
>The carefull reader will discover my use of the "," for decimal place 
>and "." for digit separation. The US convention works the other way 
>around. It is also part of the US adaptation of the SI standard, so 
>care should be taken not to interprent the NIST publication as 
>conveying the correct detail for certain things, they are only to be 
>viewed as local interpretation to the USA, possibly only recommended 
>use.

No, It's not a "US adaptation," it is part of the SI (ref: 
http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8.pdf ), which BTW 
doesn't allow a glyph to be used for "digit separation," so there can 
be no ambiguity:

"5.3.4 Formatting numbers, and the decimal marker

"The symbol used to separate the integral part of a number from its 
decimal part is called the decimal marker. Following the 22nd CGPM 
(2003, Resolution 10), the decimal marker "shall be either the point on 
the line or the comma on the line." The decimal marker chosen should be 
that which is customary in the context concerned.

"If the number is between +1 and -1, then the decimal marker is always 
preceded by a zero. Following the 9th CGPM (1948, Resolution 7) and the 
22nd CGPM (2003, Resolution 10), for numbers with many digits the 
digits may be divided into groups of three by a thin space, in order to 
facilitate reading. Neither dots nor commas are inserted in the spaces 
between groups of three..."





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