questions & comments

[Ulrik Vieth]

Rowland wrote:

> It depends on what you mean by `correct'.  As far as I can tell the
> correct way to write the SI unit `gauss' is like that.
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Sorry, but as a physicist I have to object here: `Gauss' (whatever you
want to spell it) is _not_ an SI unit.  The SI unit for the magnetic
field is acutally Tesla (T), which relates to Gauss (G) as 1 T = 1 kG.

In addition, physicall units are never written out as full names in
formulas.  They are abbreviated by one or two letters, of which the
first one is uppercase if the unit is derived from a proper name.
(Two letters is only needed in a few cases when you several units
starting with the same letter, e.g. Watt (W) and Weber (Wb).)

> And you could argue that the correct way to write the name `Gauss'
> if you're writing English is like that too, since English doesn't
> have \ss.

It is certainly the most widely used spelling in the literature.

Cheers, Ulrik.

P.S. in Germany we also have 1 G = 10 DM, given that Gauss's face
appears on the 10 DM bank note, so we have 1 T = 1 kG = 10 000 DM.