Fine tuning the SI units and fundamental physical constants

Petley, B. W.

doi:10.1098/rspa.1991.0044

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The SI was declared in 1960 as an 'evolving' and 'practical' system of units. 'Evolving' is evidenced in the large amount of theoretical and experimental work that has been conducted on changing the standards for the base units from artefacts to physical constants, to improve their stability and reproducibility [20][21][22][23][24][25]. 'Practical', however, seems to have often been interpreted as 'pragmatic' and this has led to the adoption of some existing units, names and symbols with disregard for consistency and uniqueness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The next 50 years of the SI: a review of the opportunities for the e-Science age

Foster¹

2010

Metrologia

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The International System of Units (SI) was declared as a practical and evolving system in 1960 and is now 50 years old. A large amount of theoretical and experimental work has been conducted to change the standards for the base units from artefacts to physical constants, to improve their stability and reproducibility. Less attention, however, has been paid to improving the SI definitions, utility and usability, which suffer from contradictions, ambiguities and inconsistencies. While humans can often resolve these issues contextually, computers cannot. As an ever-increasing volume and proportion of data about physical quantities is collected, exchanged, processed and rendered by computers, this paper argues that the SI definitions, symbols and syntax should be made more rigorous, so they can be represented wholly and unambiguously in ontologies, programs, data and text, and so the SI notation can be rendered faithfully in print and on screen.

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