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Re: 1 dm^3 = 1 liter ? (correction)



Apparently the opus I sent last night (early this morning) was too much for
either the phys-l server software, or else for some other internet bug
which ate and garbled part of my copy of my post. For some reason my quote
of Bill Larson's last post on the "Do MDs need to know Physics" thread and
my first paragraph got merged together because of a 9 line deletion. It
seems that this deletion occurred just where a non-ASCII character
(133 dec, 85 hex, ctrl-E with leading bit set) was hiding in my copy of
Bill's post (just after the & in "was a child prodigy &"). Come to think
of it, it now seems likely, upon rereading, that my copy of Bill's original
post may have a deletion as well after this same character, since that
would explain its apparent choppy style.

After checking the phys-l archives I noticed that that version of my post
has a 16 line deletion at the point of the offending character which
completely deleted my first paragraph and a good part of my second one.
In case deletions like these were made on everybody's copies of my post,
I'm sending the corrected version below through my first two paragraphs
(without the offending character # 133). If Bill would send a copy of his
original post I would be able to better follow what he has said in case
there is a deletion there as well.

Corrected version of the beginning of my post:
************************************************************************
Regarding Bill Larson's investigation for old uses of the liter:
Ok, so I've finished grading my 13 tests and dragged out the
1966 CRC manual and a 1965 University Physics text, err,
um, inherited from my grandfather? No, I was a child prodigy &(cut #133)
OK, when I was a freshman. Neither mention the "liter" AT ALL!
After checking current texts, which do. I conclude that the liter
was in some sort of purgatory, possibly because it really was
indeed not quite equal to 1000 cm^3.

I'm surprised that neither of these references of yours would *mention*
the liter. I've checked an assortment of CRC Handbook editions from
multiple years and all of them define the liter and give conversion
factors between liters and cm^3, m^3, etc. But the earliest edition that
I have access to is the 48th ed 1967-8. Maybe things were different for
earlier editions?

This question of the history of the definition of the liter has motivated
me to root around the library looking up various definitions of the liter
in various references. From what I have found it seems that many authors
have been slow to embrace the revised definition of the liter. Even the
CRC tables have been nearly a decade late. Below is an abbreviated
history of the situation as best as I have been able to determine it.
(Much of the info comes from 1991 ed. of the NIST spec. pub. 330 on the
SI system, available on the NIST web site.) Bill's conclusion "that
the liter was in some sort of purgatory" seems to be born out with more
investigation.
**************************************************************************

The above corrects the following garbled (9-line deletion) version of the
initial part of my post:
**************************************************************************
Regarding Bill Larson's investigation for old uses of the liter:
Ok, so I've finished grading my 13 tests and dragged out the
1966 CRC manual and a 1965 University Physics text, err,
um, inherited from my grandfather? No, I was a child prodigy &that
I have access to is the 48th ed 1967-8. Maybe things were different for
earlier editions?
**************************************************************************

Sorry about this mixup.

David Bowman
dbowman@gtc.georgetown.ky.us