[SciPy-user] Units in SciPy

[Robert Kern]

Duncan Child wrote:

> 1) any interest out there in us putting a units package into scipy?

Sure, but not any of the current ones.

> 2) any preference for a particular implementation? Unum, etc.

Unum is GPL.

I don't think any of the current offerings (Unum, ScientificPython's 
PhysicalQuantities, and pyre.units) do particularly well with this 
issue, although, as I note below, PhysicalQuantities gets closest.

> 3) does anyone have input or suggestions regarding the temperature issue?

Personally: computing absolute "degrees Fahrenheit" from absolute 
"degrees Celsius" is not a unit conversion; it is a calculation built on 
top of unit conversions. Converting "feet" from "meters" is a unit 
conversion. Computing "feet from my house" from "meters from the North 
Pole" is a calculation. I think that it is unwise to expect a unit 
conversion system to handle such a computation the same way it handles 
everything else.

That said, ScientificPython hacks around this creditably: "K" and "degR" 
are both the absolute (referenced to absolute zero) and the differential 
units. "degC" and "degF" are the absolute units referenced to their 
respective zeros.

It's limited, though. You can't add a "degR" differential temperature to 
a "degC" absolute temperature, but you can add a "K" differential 
temperature. You can add "degC" to a "degC", but that's inconsistent.

Frink[1], which I hold as the gold standard for computer unit 
conversions (and whose "Sample Calculations"[2] ought to be repeated for 
any proposed unit package), sorta gets this right. Celsius[x] and 
Fahrenheit[x] are functions that go back and forth between systems. Give 
them an unadorned number, they'll interpret as, e.g. "10 degrees 
Celsius", and convert to absolute Kelvin. Give it an absolute 
temperature (in Kelvin or Rankine), and it will spit out the numerical 
value of the temperature in its own scale (although unadorned by any 
unit). "degC" and "degF" are the differential units.

It would be useful to have a system that would handle the general case 
of referenced measurements like the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales and 
"meters from my house". The appropriate distinctions should be made when 
operations mix referenced measurements and "differential" quantities.

Oh, and any system should yoink the contents of Frink's database.

[1] http://futureboy.homeip.net/frinkdocs/
[2] http://futureboy.homeip.net/frinkdocs/#SampleCalculations

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter