mfd = micro and not milli farads?

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#41
Forget international standards, we'll just do whatever we want, that's the American way!
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When you are tinkering with things that were invented before the internet or modern typesetting equipment, it is normal to see different words or abbreviations used. Often it is just oversite and yes, the thinking that we do it this way, so everyone else must do it this way too, regardless of who "we" are.

In the 60's General Motors brought out a new small car called the Chevrolet Nova. Nova is the Latin word for new. Bewildered by the lack of car sales in Mexico and Latin America someone figured out that No Va has a different meaning to hispanics No = No, Va = go, so Nova = doesn't go!
 
#44
macboy said:
I guess we can expect no better when you use "kph" instead of "km/h" for kilometers per hour, or "cc" instead of "cm3" for cubic centimeter - which should actually be mL (millilitre) in the first place. Forget international standards, we'll just do whatever we want, that's the American way! 🙄
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Hi km/h is the standard. cm3 = short for the english "cubic centimeter" = millilitre... but since England was a motorcycle country it has had a big influence and it was and is custom to write "a 500 cc Honda CB". I guess everybody else adopted it as it sounds better too than 500 milliliter 😉 Litres are not written with capital first letter. However, in english speaking countries it was suspected that it would be confused with 1. It has been fashion to write ℓ but this is considered old fashioned now. I think it is very clear to write 100 ℓ instead of 100 l or 100 L.


DF96 said:
No, it is plain wrong to write Farad when you mean the unit of capacitance. Units based on a person's name lose the initial capital. So farad, watt, hertz, volt etc. are correct for units; Watt, Hertz, Volta etc. are peoples' names.
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This is definitely totally the other way around! 100 kVA, 100 kW, 100 MJ, 100 Nm, 50 Hz etc. etc. There should be a space between the number and the unit too.
 
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#54
Yup, I hate to admit it but I thought the same thing so I looked down at my keyboard and low and behold there is no 'm' only 'M' so I thought about and decided that thinking about it meant I really ought to be doing something else with my time.

Ne'ertheless...here we are.
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Ha ha the letters on a Mac keyboard are in capitals.
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yes I know, I thought this through too (I have a mac), but in this case the M is just a ruse, it's m thus choosing the phrase 'wouldnt that technically....' oh what fun to be had on the interweb
 
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