[texhax] Units in technical writing

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2011-12-28 at 18:05:19 -0700, Gordon Haverland wrote:

 > For example: line breaking.  If I have $3 m/s$ in my source, do I 
 > want to allow a linebreak between the 3 and the unit?  I know that 
 > if I see a line break in the middle of the unit (here m/s) I 
 > should do something to change the linebreak.

Linebreaks between a number and a unit should be avoided.  But why do
you ask?  You recognized yourself that they are unfortunate.  So just
avoid them.
 
 > I think there is a reason to typeset units slightly different from 
 > regular text.
 > 
 > He did something for 1 second.
 > 
 > He did something for the second time.
 > 
 > If "second" is typeset slightly differently in the first case, a 
 > person gets reinforcement that a unit of measurement is involved.

I don't see any need.  Both sentences are comprehensible and
unambiguous.  And "second" is not a unit but plain text in both cases.
The unit is "s".
 
 > Where I run into something similar, is that if I am talking about 
 > elements, I will do something like
 > 
 > The lead (Pb) is the major component of the battery plate.
 > 
 > The word "lead" is just too ambiguous and has different 
 > pronounciations depending on context.  And by appending (Pb) I 
 > hope to avoid much of this ambiguity.  

Yes, a battery is quite useless without leads (cables) but you are
talking about a battery plate, which reduces the amount of ambiguities.
On the other hand, mentioning Pb is a nice idea.
 
 > Mind you, it does depend on people knowing that the periodic table
 > abbreviation for lead is Pb ({\it plumbum}).

Don't worry.  Everybody knows.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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