Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> writes:
> I believe that multiplication/division is logically a reasonable operation
> for units, with the right algebraic properties, e.g. (a+b)*unit == a*unit +
> b*unit; unit1*unit2 == unit2*unit1; etc.
Robert didn't answer this bit, so I'll point out one problem: Not all
units are scalar multiples of other units for the same quantity. For
example, centigrade and farenheight are not related linearly, but affine
linearly.
I'm pretty certain I remember my mother (a physics teacher) explaining
this to me when I was younger because was asking why we bothered with
units at all ("after all, can't you just pretend kg is a number?").
Rupert
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