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Hi all,
Excuse me, but this thread makes me feel as if I were attending a
second-grade academic dispute in a third-grade university in 1300 A.D. or
so.
Aren't kilometers measurement units, by any chance?
If so, may I remind you that they are called "units" because they are just
convenient short-cuts for "ratios" (fractions -- remember, "rational
numbers").
Now, what about "kilometer" as a conventional name (Roger perhaps would like
to call it a "label") for this ratio, "length" as a property of a tangible
entity (the Yang Tze River), that amounts to an approximation of a rational
number?
"El sueño de la razón produce monstruos" (F. Goya)
Regards
--
Laurent Sabarthez
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger L. Costello [mailto:costello@mitre.org]
Sent: jeudi 17 juillet 2003 13:00
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Cc: Costello,Roger L.
Subject: [xml-dev] What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a
"kilometer"?
Hi Folks,
Consider this statement:
"The length of the Yangtze River is 6300 kilometers."
What is a "kilometer"?
1. Is kilometer a class? Is 6300 an instance of the kilometer class?
kilometer class: {..., 6300, ...}
2. Is kilometer a function? e.g., kilometer(Yangtze) --> 6300
In general: kilometer(physical object) --> number
"The kilometer function maps a physical object to a number."
3. Is kilometer a property? e.g., a property of the Yangtze River
is kilometer (this doesn't quite sound right; perhaps there's
another way of expressing this that is more natural?)
4. Is kilometer a label? If so, then what's a label?
Or is it something else? /Roger
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