NAME

units - conversion program

SYNOPSIS

units

DESCRIPTION

units converts  quantities  expressed  in  various  standard
scales  to  their  equivalents  in  other  scales.  It works
interactively in this fashion:

     You have:  inch
     You want:  cm
             * 2.540000e+00
             / 3.937008e-01

A quantity is specified as a multiplicative combination of units optionally preceded by a numeric multiplier. Powers are indicated by suffixed positive integers, division by the usual sign:

You have:  15 lbs force/in2
You want:  atm
        * 1.020689e+00
        / 9.797299e-01

units only does multiplicative scale changes; thus it can convert Kelvin to Rankine, but not Celsius to Fahrenheit. Most familiar units, abbreviations, and metric prefixes are recognized, together with a generous leavening of exotica and a few constants of nature including:

pi       ratio of circumference to diameter,
c        speed of light,
e        charge on an electron,
g        acceleration of gravity,
force    same as g,
mole     Avogadro's number,
water    pressure head per unit height of water,
au       astronomical unit.

Pound is not recognized as a unit of mass; lb is. Compound names are run together, (e.g., lightyear). British units that differ from their U.S. counterparts are prefixed thus: brgallon. For a complete list of units, type:

cat /usr/lib/unittab

FILES

/usr/lib/unittab