Measuring your words – the SI Guide teaches the international language of science

Did you know you knew "techno-speak"? Most of us do – imperfectly, even though we are using this technical language every day. The chances are we don’t realize that we know it, but in any case, we would do well to learn it better. Here comes just what you need: a pocket dictionary of this "language": the SI Guide.

The SI (International System of Units), a coherent, metric, and decimal system, is so much part of our mental framework that we never even stop to think about it, and yet, without it, the world would be a far less ordered place. ‘Coherent’, firstly, meaning that there are no other conversion factors except for one, 1. Then 'metric' meaning that it is based on invariable references, which cannot be destroyed. From the beginning, during the French Revolution the references were "such as the circumference of the Earth, the duration of the day, and the density of water". Nowadays, these references have been replaced with more accurate fundamental physical Constants, such as speed of light in vacuum and the triple point of water. The SI is used in all contexts: in daily life, just as in the technical and scientific fields. Everywhere.

The ISO Standards Handbook, Quantities and Units has proved its worth. It contains the 14 parts that go to make up ISO 31, Quantities and units, and that constitutes the body of International Standards covering the measurement of anything. Now we have a pocket version with just the essentials of the International System of Units in a handly manual of 32 pages.

The SI is built in such a way that only one unit is used for each kind of quantity, which makes the system very simple. But, of course, this SI Guide contains conversion factors for other common units, in order to make it easy to calculate numerical values expressed in SI units.

In this SI Guide, all the new SI prefixes are included; it also takes account of the recent decision by the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (CGPM) to delete the class of supplementary units in the SI. The units for logarithmic quantities, e.g., in acoustics (namely, the neper and the decibel), are also included.  time, periodic phenomena, mechanics, heat, electricity and magnetism, light, acoustics, physical chemistry, atomic and nuclear physics activity, ionizing radiations, characteristic numbers, and it ends with conversion tables.

This SI Guide covers the basics of: the historical background, the principles of the SI, the base units, derived units, multiples and sub-multiples, additional units, printing rules, space and time, periodic phenomena, mechanics, heat, electricity and magnetism, light, acoustics, physical chemistry, atomic and nuclear physics, ionizing radiations, characteristic numbers, and it ends with conversion tables.

We are convinced that large number of people will benefit from the SI Guide in its small and practical format and at a special price for quantity purchases, because basically, everybody is involved; there are few professional or non-professional areas not concerned by the standards. The SI Guide provides excellent guidance and help for students in science and technology – and for their teachers – for engineers, technical writers, and for scientists. It will teach all of them to speak the international language of science. And those who require more detail will find it all in complete form in the ISO Standards Handbook. Quantities and units. For those who require more details, refer to the ISO 31 series, which is successively being replaced by the ISO 80000 and IEC 80000 series. For a list of parts published so far, visit the ISO Store and conduct a search for "80000".

Weigh it up – you’re certain to be a winner!