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Re: [uom-ontology-std] retitled: magnitude of a quantity

To: uom-ontology-std <uom-ontology-std@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: jhd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Professor James Davenport <J.H.Davenport@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:31:59 +0100
Message-id: <20090715103159.9mqk1d9j8kokooc4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Pat Hayes wrote:
> On Jul 14, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> >  There is a set of categories that are
> > 'kinds of quantity', such that all instances of any 'kind of quantity'
> > category are comparable and no pair of instances from two different
> > kinds of quantity are comparable.
>
> Why the second requirement? If length and width are different
> quantities (why not?) they are nevertheless comparable.
Personally, I'm not sure that I would give 'length' and 'width'  
different kinds, but that's why we will (when we actually get down to  
talking about populating the ontology) be having these debates. Two  
better examples are torque and energy, see \cite[section  
2.2]{Collins2009}, or the distinction between relative and  
non-relative temperatures
\cite[section 4]{StratfordDavenport2008} \cite[Appendix B]{SP 811}.
For a recent example of getting this wrong, see
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5141873.ece?Submitted=true    (01)

James Davenport
Visiting Full Professor, University of Waterloo
Otherwise:
Hebron & Medlock Professor of Information Technology and
Chairman, Powerful Computing WP, University of Bath
OpenMath Content Dictionary Editor
IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication    (02)


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