Re: [uom-ontology-std] VIM definitions

[Mark H Linehan <mlinehan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In another effort, I and some colleagues discovered that the note about "quantity in a general sense" and "particular quantity" (and also the use of these terms in a heading of a table) was in a draft version of VIM but was dropped from the actual published standard JCGM 200:2008, which is available online at http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/documents/jcgm/JCGM_200_2008.pdf.

Note 1 now reads:

"NOTE 1 The generic concept ‘quantity’ can be divided
into several levels of specific concepts, as shown in the
following table. The left hand side of the table shows
specific concepts under ‘quantity’. These are generic
concepts" for the individual quantities in the right hand
column."

... and there is a table that implies (for example) that the quantity "length" might be "divided" (subtyped?) as "radius" or as "wavelength" that has "individual quantities" such as "radius of circle A" and "wavelength of the sodium D radiation".

Having said all that, I think that it is very important to distinguish between the four concepts that Ed Barkmeyer identified in a recent email. In that other effort, we had serious communication difficulties when we failed to make such distinctions.
--------------------------------
Mark H. Linehan
STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation
IBM Research

phone: (914) 784-7002 or IBM tieline 863-7002
internet: mlinehan@xxxxxxxxxx
"Martin S. Weber" <martin.weber@xxxxxxxx>

"Martin S. Weber" <martin.weber@xxxxxxxx>
Sent by: uom-ontology-std-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

07/14/2009 01:39 PM

Please respond to
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Subject	Re: [uom-ontology-std] VIM definitions

David Leal wrote:
> Dear Geoffrey,
> 
> I think that this is well worth discussing with the metrology experts.
> 
> Two meanings of "quantity"?
> ---------------------------
> The reference
> http://www.electropedia.org/iev/iev.nsf/display?openform&ievref=111-11-01
> has the following note to the definition of (physical) quantity:
> 
> NOTE 1 – The term quantity may refer to a quantity in a general sense
> (examples: length, time, mass, temperature, electrical resistance,
> amount-of-substance concentration) or to a particular quantity (examples:
> length of a given rod, electrical resistance of a given specimen of wire,
> amount-of-substance concentration of ethanol C2H5OH in a given sample of wine).
> 
> This note, which is not present in the VIM, may be crucial. (...)

Not being a metrologist but observing: This is actually a good source of 
confusion. But aside this, this note, even in other words, is in the VIM. See 
NOTE 1 on 1.1 (quantity). The table following the NOTE 1 may also be 
enlightening. For clarification these -could- be called differently (like, 
generic quantity, quantity groups, area-specific quantity groups, base 
quantities in the sense of VIM 1.4, etc.), but the VIM explicitely chooses not 
to. This is a confusion that should be equivalently confusing modelled! [i.e. 
keep all the overloaded meanings of the term 'quantity' to stick to BIPM-parlese].

-Martin
 
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