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From: mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: multiplier legend on dials & meters
Message-ID: <2960@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 09:32:59 EST
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2960
Posted: Mon Dec 30 09:32:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jan-86 00:52:51 EST
References: <1471@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 23

> Can anyone explain the rationale for the explanatory legend that goes on a 
> dial or meter when the actual numbers shown represent some fixed multiple 
> of a standard unit?  It seems to me that they often have it exactly 
> backwards.  
> ...
> Suppose the dial says 3.  Then
> 
>                RPM X 1000 = 3
>                RPM = 3/1000 = .003

You are putting the dial reading in the wrong place.  It should read
		 3 RPM X 1000
or 3000 rpm.  Or to put it another way, the units are  (RPM X 1000)
which is the same as (1000 RPM)  {because multiplication is commutative,
hooray for new math}.

Your big mistake, however, is that you actually tried to think about
something that appears on a mass-market product.  That is not how it
was intended to be used.
-- 
Jon Mauney,    mcnc!ncsu!mauney         North Carolina State University

"It's so simple, so very simple, that only a child can do it."