Viktor Kuncak <vkuncak@mit.edu> wrote:

Not declaring myself as an American or European, but as a
Computer Scientists, why not provide a mechanism for
expressing physical measurements using tags?

Introduce a set of units, and write measurements as pairs
(number,unit) represented in some convenient concrete
syntax. Then the conversion to html can display miles or
kilometers according to the viewer's perspective.

PS. I know I am leaning towards ontologies again, but this is an
example where the benefits seem obvious.

Viktor

I disagree with that option Viktor.

When I work with french people in wheat business, I need to express myself in quintaux/hectares (and euros). With british people, in tons/hectares (and pounds). Thank god, both are weight measurements. Both british and french are able to communicate easily on those.

Then, when I work with americans, I have to deal with bushels/acres (and dollars), which are volume measurements. And they won't hear anything different :-(
I will be happy when all three groups accept the difference and learn to cope themselves with it (that is when american agree our way is best ;-)).

Right now, it is not the case, and an article automatically adapting itself to one regional options is not going to help. One way to learn to evaluate different unit is to see it next to the one you know, not to suppress it.

As for using the SI above all systems, I wonder. In chemistry, C is carbon, N nitrogen and Ni nickel. But for metallurgists, C is chromium, N is nickel and Az is nitrogen. In an article on metallurgy, mentionning common alloy, that might be worth mentionning ;-)