Snefaldia wrote:Knootoss wrote:The fact that nations clearly operate at different technology levels makes it difficult for me to justify an exception for scientific principles. And frankly, it's usually better to explain a principle than to use a shortcut-word for it.
We are agreed on the first part of your statement, but can you give an example of how we might avoid a situation where we have to define the length of a meter as the atomic decay of a cesium atom or whatever? Why might it necessarily be better to do that, instead of using a commonly understood lay term, or even a scientific term?
Somehow I doubt proposals are being deleted frequently because "Planck's Constant doesn't exist in the NS world."
There was a period in the last year where the use of year was being twisted as a method of creative compliance. Where a mandate might have said "inspect this every year", those who wished to avoid the requirements would claim their concept of a year is hundreds of times longer than that of one on earth or that their home planet had different year lengths.
That's also where talk of standardizing units of measurement comes about.