[lojban] On measure units

[Lionel Bonnetier <leo@EASYNET.FR>]

Veijo Vilva wrote:

>   Actually, this term, 'sekuntimetri' (Finnish), can be found in
>   encyclopedias and is also used in the Scandinavian languages
>   ('sekundmeter' in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish). It is quite
>   commonly used in weather forecasts on the radio.

(...)

>      nidytre        x1 is x2 in meters per second in direction x3
>   and, generalizing,
>      nidnidytre     x1 is x2 in meters per second per second in direction x3


That's a nice short expression. But it may lead to problems of clarity,
since we have to deal not only with unit/unit, but also unit*unit magnitutes:

For instance kWh, which means

kW*h: a quantity of energy:
   (energy / time) * time == energy
   (1 W is 1 J/s)

not kW/h: the speed a power changes:
   (energy / time) / time == energy / time^2

But since the unit*unit expressions are far less frequent than unit/unit, we
could state any unit1-unit2 lujvo to mean unit2 / unit1, and add an explicit
multiplication element for the unit*unit lujvo's.

Besides, a kilowatt-hour lujvo would be hardly misinterpreted, since h/kW
makes very little sense in today's science.

co'o mi'e lionel