OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

office-formula message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: Fwd: Re: [office-formula] Straw poll - slug (and lightyear)


"Andreas J. Guelzow":
> We say "Light-year, the distance light travels in a year of 365.25 days"
> which isn't exact at all (we probably mean in vacuum...).

Ah, that's an error in the spec. It should *definitely* say "distance light travels, in a vacuum,
in a year of 365.25 days".  In general, we should be giving exact values where we can.

PATRICK: Please insert ", in a vacuum," after "light travels", at that point.
Let me know if you want me to create a separate JIRA comment for this.

WARNING: Technical nitpick ahead:
The distance light travels in a year, in a vacuum, *is* exact; the meter is actually defined
in terms of speed of light in a vacuum. And while an Earth year isn't exactly 365.25 days, for purposes of a
light-year, that's the exact value of the "year". It's not well-documented, but astronomers
use this "standard year approximation" of 365.25 days when stating light-years.
And since a day is exactly 24*60*60 seconds, this has an exact value.
I actually had to track that down, and I'm pretty sure I posted my citations
(though I can't remember where they are right now).  If anyone knows differently,
please let us know now.

--- David A. Wheeler


[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]