Abstract
THE confusion between the two calories referred to by Mr. Marks in NATURE of Jan. 14 would be made worse by his suggestion that the kilogram calorie should be written as Kalorie, since it could then be confused with the so-called Ostwald calorie—a unit which should never be used and is now obsolete, because the latter is denoted by K. The matter of differentiating between the gram and kilogram calories was considered by the Bureau of Chemical Abstracts some little time ago, and the chairman of the board, Prof. J. C. Philip, informs me that it was decided to use ‘g. cal.’ and ‘k. cal.’ for the two units. It is highly desirable that this method should be generally adopted, since much confusion and even error is undoubtedly caused by the use of ‘ cal.’ and ‘ Cal.’ The question of the unit calorie, whether 15° or 20°, etc., adds a further source of confusion to very accurate work, and when this is known it may be stated as a suffix, say g. cal.15°, as is also done by the Bureau of Chemical Abstracts.
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PARTINGTON, J. [Letters to Editor]. Nature 121, 170 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121170c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121170c0
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