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6.2 Other Nonlinear Units

Some other examples of nonlinear units are numerous different ring sizes and wire gauges, the grit sizes used for abrasives, the decibel scale, shoe size, scales for the density of sugar (e.g. baume). The standard data file also supplies units for computing the area of a circle and the volume of a sphere. See the standard units data file for more details. Wire gauges with multiple zeroes are signified using negative numbers where two zeroes is ‘-1’. Alternatively, you can use the synonyms ‘g00’, ‘g000’, and so on that are defined in the standard units data file.

     You have: wiregauge(11)
     You want: inches
             * 0.090742002
             / 11.020255
     
     You have: brwiregauge(g00)
     You want: inches
             * 0.348
             / 2.8735632
     
     You have: 1 mm
     You want: wiregauge
             18.201919
     
     You have: grit_P(600)
     You want: grit_ansicoated
             342.76923

The last example shows the conversion from P graded sand paper, which is the European standard and may be marked “P600” on the back, to the USA standard. You can compute the area of a circle using the nonlinear unit, ‘circlearea’. You can also do this using the circularinch or circleinch. The next example shows two ways to compute the area of a circle with a five inch radius and one way to compute the volume of a sphere with a radius of one meter.

     You have: circlearea(5 in)
     You want: in2
             * 78.539816
             / 0.012732395
     
     You have: 10^2 circleinch
     You want: in2
             * 78.539816
             / 0.012732395
     
     You have: spherevol(meter)
     You want: ft3
             * 147.92573
             / 0.0067601492