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Re: SI question



Regarding Joel Rauber's question:

I have a question for the SI guru's out there.

It is common practice in the US to use a period "." as a delimiter in
expressing a number between the whole number digits and the fractional
digits. I.e. the decimal point. In Europe it is common practice to use the
comma "," for the same purpose.

Is there an official SI position on what symbol to use for the "decimal
point".

I don't think the arbiters of SI style require either method (dot or
comma) of delimiting decimals other than to recommend the use of the
method that is common for the language in which one is writing. For
instance, in English its the dot-type decimal point, and in German its
the comma-type of delimiter.

The NIST has a style guide (SP811) that covers this matter as the
recommended practice in the United States. See

http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec10.html

for further details. In particular, in Section 10.5.2 it is written:

Decimal sign or marker

The recommended decimal sign or marker for use in the United States
is the dot on the line [4, 8]. For numbers less than one, a zero is
written before the decimal marker. For example, 0.25 s is the correct
form, not .25 s.

David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu