Customer Reviews

A Dictionary Of International Units: Metric-Matters: Names and Symbols

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This book is ideal for preparing questions for a trivia quiz on SI (metric) units. It's also a good resource for teachers to illustrate the use of prefixes in maths, also spelling and language work in this subject.

The second edition of the book has more text than the first edition. It is an excellent book which is recommended for all science students especilly those in the USA where Imperial units are still in use.
In the second edition you'll see the address of the author's website site which should also be available by mid September.
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A review of `A Dictionary of International Units: Metric-Matters: Names and Symbols (SI units)' second edition by Philip Bladon, published by iUniverse, New York.

This is a small reference book of just 89 pages, but it provides much information that it is not easy to find elsewhere. International units and the correct abbreviations for them have changed considerably over the past twenty years. Textbooks in schools worldwide are often up to ten years old and sometimes even older. The consequence is that students learn incorrect units and sometimes even if they know the correct unit they may write the abbreviation incorrectly.

As a reference work it is convenient to use as lists symbols providing the correct names for units as well as listing the names for units for which it provides the correct symbols. There is also a listing of the units named after scientists which gives a brief glimpse of the history of scientific units.

The second part of the book gives a listing by symbol, which includes the unit name and the quantity being measured and a further table providing the listing by quantity. Additionally there are a number of other useful tables and well written and relevant advice.

Altogether this is a vital and inexpensive reference work for those wishing to be up to date in the use of scientific units and symbols, which the reviewer recommends unconditionally.

BILL PALMER