The last paragraph is troubling. The same group has "used the wrong gas constant" before. This seems like it is the kind of mistake you wish to be careful to not repeat. However, it is also a consequence of using "naked numbers." If you do calculations without the units appended to your measurements, and do not get the expected unit cancellation, you are 100% sure you are making a mistake. (Even if they cancel, you can still make a mistake, but if they don't, a mistake is largely guaranteed.
From: Stanislav Jakuba <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, September 5, 2016 4:18 PM Subject: [USMA 315] Units mixup Too bad we cannot estimate the cost of not being metric that includes also the money and trouble spent on fixing errors caused by unit mix-ups. Quote:The researchers originally reported that a set of 14 PAHs had total concentrations of 330, 240, and 210 ng/m3 for the three groups, respectively. But they later discovered that they had mistakenly used a value of the ideal gas constant with incorrect units in their calculations to determine the air concentrations of PAHs and to adjust them for sampling temperature, Anderson explains. This error invalidated the original results. Read the whole article at:http://cen.acs.org/articles/94 /web/2016/08/Fracking-air-poll ution-study-retracted.html? utm_source=Newsletter&utm_ medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign =CEN _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
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