Kenny Gow wrote:
Mike McCarty wrote:Please, allow each group its own jargon. MikeWell, I guess you just don't get it. Some of us are members of many
I do "get" it. You are some sort of a control freak, and think that everyone has to speak the way you do, and that every term has to have one and only one use and meaning. Except for the ones that you chose to use in different ways yourself. How many different uses do you make of the term "field"? Is the ring of integers modulo a prime a field? Is the electromagnetic field a field? How about the Dirac field? How about a soccer field? Is Hilbert space also a field?
different groups. Let me put it in historical context for you:
Let me put *you* into historical context. I first encountered these terms used in this way (as powers of two) in 1969 or thereabouts, when I was programming an IBM 1401 computer in machine language. So they are not "johnny come latelies". Yes, the SI was developed in 1960, so perhaps they were borrowed in a sense. But I might point out that "megacycle" was in use in about 1920 or so. So the term "mega" predates SI. So one might just as well complain that SI hijacked previously used terms as well. I found that the SI also did two other things which I find rather objectionable: They "took away" the "cps" as a unit, and substituted the ugly and non-descriptive "Hertz", and then have made the "Kelvin" as opposed to "degree Kelvin" as a unit. Of course, we don't have the corresponding "Fahrenheit" as a unit. I suppose that this almost makes sense, as the kelvin temperature scale is actually a ratiometric scale.
from http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html Historical context*Once upon a time, computer professionals noticed that 210 was very nearly equal to 1000 and started using the SI prefix "kilo" to mean
I suppose you think that I am not aware of this. I've been active in electronics for quite some time, having started construction of various devices in about 1965 or so. So I am quite well acquainted with these prefices. The patronizing tone of this particular quote is rather off-putting, don't you think? [snip]
Faced with this reality, the IEEE Standards Board decided that IEEE standards will use the conventional, internationally adopted, definitions of the SI prefixes. Mega will mean 1 000 000, except that the base-two definition may be used (if such usage is explicitly pointed out on a case-by-case basis) until such time that prefixes for binary multiples are adopted by an appropriate standards body.
I'll point out here that what *may* be used by people is not up
to standards bodies to determine.
Mike
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I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
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