Talk:Unit of measurement: Difference between revisions

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:::::::::: I know. This is not great for checking references (and the idea of having references is so that they can be checked). However, such sources are useful, and can be the only reasonably reputable/reliable/authoritative sources available. Puzzlingly, [https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:80000:-3:ed-2:v1:en ISO 80000-3:2019(en) Quantities and units — Part 3: Space and time] ”is” freely accessible in its entirety, despite being purchasable (and when I last checked quite a number of the other parts had useful parts accessible). This means that a number of quantities that are of interest here can be freely checked. Many of the other parts of the standard are not freely accessible, which means that only some editors will have access to them (e.g. through their employer or institution having purchased a copy). —[[User_talk:Quondum|Quondum]] 15:23, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::Perhaps I can explain the apparent discrepancy. While ISO standards are indeed behind a pay wall (as are most books and many peer-reviewed journal publications, but no one complains about citing those), ISO has a policy of making Clauses 1-3 of all standards browsable. While there are exceptions, it is often the case that Clause 3 contains the terms and their definitions that Wikipedia needs to support statements like the ones we are talking about. So this ISO policy means that the parts we actually need are publicly browsable. [[User:Dondervogel 2|Dondervogel 2]] ([[User talk:Dondervogel 2|talk]]) 19:07, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::: This is the first time that I’ve noticed that part 3 has no normative content. I’m not complaining, but I suppose I need to revise my understanding of what a standard is considered to be. Having a standard that provides non-normative exemplars makes a lot of sense. —[[User_talk:Quondum|Quondum]] 20:05, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Sources must be available somewhere, but knowledge is not limited to free online sources. Historically, experts in most subjects have desired to eat and a system was created to pay them for their expertise. So called “free” sources are often paid for by advertisements, a source of bias. Some open source science publications allow junk to be published for a fee. In science articles the insidious form this bias takes is exaggerated, hyped articles about solid but unconfirmed scientific papers. I spend good deal of time replacing content based on such sources.

::::::::::Many paywall sources are available via [[Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library|The Wikipedia Library]], either directly or by request. Many universities, colleges, and cities have large libraries available free. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 17:25, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

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The Base and derived units section of the article contains the following passage which I am having trouble understanding:

The base units of SI are actually not the smallest set possible. Smaller sets have been defined. For example, there are unit sets in which the electric and magnetic field have the same unit.

I can’t exactly see what it means- the base units of SI only seem to include a unit for electric current (Amperes), which is a distinct (but related) concept from electric field as far as I understand. Since the base units don’t include a system for magnetic OR electric field, these must be in the derived units (or, strictly, they could just not exist, but that’s unlikely). As such, since we’re only discussing the base units, this passage is a bit of a non sequitur- you can’t merge the SI base units for magnetic and electric field into one because there are no such base units. Since this passage is also uncited, I can’t check the source to see if the original author explained it better, or perhaps was talking about something entirely different. I’ve added a citation needed for now.

(Also, to a proper math pedant, I must point out that of course the SI base units aren’t the smallest possible- I can make a system of measurements with no base units; it can’t measure anything that isn’t dimensionless, but I can make it). Hppavilion1 (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 05:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Units of measurement → Unit of measurement – Per WP:SINGULAR, an article’s title should be singular not plural. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The policy in question states, “exceptions include . . . the names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages)”. The policy also links to WP:PLURAL, which provides further detail and seems to apply here. This article isn’t about the concept that something could be measured by the unit, but about different units of measurement as a class; therefore it makes perfect sense to have the article under a plural title. Note that this is different from articles about specific units, as mentioned in the latter page, using foot vs. feet as an example. P Aculeius (talk) 16:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support. While P Aculeius has a point, I’d say that this article is about “the concept that something could be measured by the unit” (i.e. along the lines of a WP:BROADCONCEPT article) – it starts with a definition of one (in singular) and mostly continues in abstract terms. I’m usually wary of overapplication of WP:SINGULAR, but it seems to gracefully apply here. No such user (talk) 09:43, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Yes. The article could have been an attempt to systematically list (all?) units of measurement, but it is not. Instead it is about the concept of a unit of measurement, for which the singular form seems more appropriate. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:41, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Recent edits by @Misterpotatoman have been reverted. The procedure in Wikipedia is to next discuss the issues in the Talk page. The content was put back by Misterpotatoman in a way that mangled the page. I reverted that change. Since I believe that Misterpotatoman is a new editor I am starting the discussion here. I am hoping an explanation of the goal of these large additions will be forth coming. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

a list of types of units is useful as it describes the types of unit for different things, i don’t know what other way fo describe it. Misterpotatoman (talk) 03:56, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This concerns the insertion by Misterpotatoman of a “types of units” section, with content already covered by our existing article List of physical quantities.

Perhaps some general points may be helpful. First, Wikipedia is an online hyperlinked encyclopedia. Like other encyclopedias, we don’t try to put everything into every article. Readers are expected and encouraged to read other articles for further details, and hyperlinking makes this particularly easy on Wikipedia. Second, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought; we don’t invent our own typology and terminology. Third, as Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Tone explains, we use a formal tone with a fairly academic approach. NebY (talk) 13:22, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with NebY here but I think the addition proposed by @Misterpotatoman suggests a number of improvements we could make.

First this article is rather abstract, focusing on meta-level issues like “systems of units”. One might expect readers to want examples as we already provide on List of physical quantities. I think moving the sentence about the list up will help.

Second, we can add a redirect from List of units of measurement -> List of physical quantities because the table covers both.

Third I encourage Misterpotatoman to apply the sources used in the addition to the page List of physical quantities. That would be great.

I’ll do the first two and hope for the third. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ok, im currently doing that (the third suggestion) Misterpotatoman (talk) 17:53, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The “rather abstract” nature of this article was discussed above in Talk:Unit of measurement#Requested move 3 May 2018, and confirmed. I didn’t participate in that discussion but I take the points made, and note also that we do have various articles on different systems of units (e.g. International System of Units, US customary units, List of customary units of measurement in South Asia) and list units there as well as having individual articles. There are so many historic and current units; we shouldn’t start listing them here.

I didn’t discuss the sources Misterpotatoman used as I wanted to focus first on more general principles of which they might be unaware. Many of them are not pitched at the level we normally require of our sources, being aimed at schoolchildren e.g. the sources cited for speed, [1], [2]. Let’s not use them in List of physical quantities. NebY (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that units should generally be sourced to the place where they are “defined and adopted by convention”. Such a source is authoritative and highly reviewed. @Misterpotatoman please ask for suggestions if you have trouble finding them. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:38, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is rather surprising that List of physical quantities is unsourced. At first glance, all could be cited to the relevant parts of ISO 80000, as described in International System of Quantities, rather than piecemeal citation of individual quantities to different sources. Though this might be better addressed on Talk:List of physical quantities, as we’re already discussing it here I’ll ping @Dondervogel 2 and @Quondum, whom I remember as doing much work on such sourcing. @Misterpotatoman, I suggest you hold off from adding sources until we’ve discussed this further, otherwise your time and effort might be wasted. NebY (talk) 18:53, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, citing ISO/IEC 80000 seems appropriate for most of the physical quantities listed. My suggestion would be to use ISO 80000 as a filter. For those table entries not supported by ISO 80000, add ad-hoc sources if worth keeping (and otherwise delete entry) . Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:21, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the International System of Quantities, as documented by ISO/IEC 80000, is so comprehensive that there might not be any entries worth keeping that aren’t supported by it. NebY (talk) 18:37, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It might make sense to have an indication of which section of ISO/IEC 80000 defines a quantity, to allow reference by the reader. Especially since it is pay-walled. —Quondum 18:46, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i may not be getting something, but if the ISO/IEC 80000 is payed then why would we use it as a wall if most people cant check the source and don’t want to buy something, especially because wikipedia is the free encyclopedia. Misterpotatoman (talk) 09:31, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know. This is not great for checking references (and the idea of having references is so that they can be checked). However, such sources are useful, and can be the only reasonably reputable/reliable/authoritative sources available. Puzzlingly, ISO 80000-3:2019(en) Quantities and units — Part 3: Space and time is freely accessible in its entirety, despite being purchasable (and when I last checked quite a number of the other parts had useful parts accessible). This means that a number of quantities that are of interest here can be freely checked. Many of the other parts of the standard are not freely accessible, which means that only some editors will have access to them (e.g. through their employer or institution having purchased a copy). —Quondum 15:23, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I can explain the apparent discrepancy. While ISO standards are indeed behind a pay wall (as are most books and many peer-reviewed journal publications, but no one complains about citing those), ISO has a policy of making Clauses 1-3 of all standards browsable. While there are exceptions, it is often the case that Clause 3 contains the terms and their definitions that Wikipedia needs to support statements like the ones we are talking about. So this ISO policy means that the parts we actually need are publicly browsable. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:07, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first time that I’ve noticed that part 3 has no normative content. I’m not complaining, but I suppose I need to revise my understanding of what a standard is considered to be. Having a standard that provides non-normative exemplars makes a lot of sense. —Quondum 20:05, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources must be available somewhere, but knowledge is not limited to free online sources. Historically, experts in most subjects have desired to eat and a system was created to pay them for their expertise. So called “free” sources are often paid for by advertisements, a source of bias. Some open source science publications allow junk to be published for a fee. In science articles the insidious form this bias takes is exaggerated, hyped articles about solid but unconfirmed scientific papers. I spend good deal of time replacing content based on such sources.

Many paywall sources are available via The Wikipedia Library, either directly or by request. Many universities, colleges, and cities have large libraries available free. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This seems be proceeding collaboratively, and I’m in general agreement with pretty much everything. —Quondum 20:10, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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