Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre is a fictional character created in 1978 by Kenneth Woolner of the University of Waterloo to justify the use of a capital L to denote litres.
The International System of Units usually only permits the use of a capital letter when a unit is named after a person.[1] The lower-case character l might be difficult to distinguish from the upper-case character I or the digit 1 in certain fonts and styles, and therefore both the lower-case (l) and the upper-case (L) are allowed as the symbol for litre. The United StatesNational Institute of Standards and Technology now recommends the use of the uppercase letter L,[2] a practice that is also widely followed in Canada and Australia.[citation needed]
Woolner perpetrated the April Fools' Day hoax in the April 1978 issue of "CHEM 13 News", a newsletter concerned with chemistry for school teachers. According to the hoax, Claude Litre was born on 12 February 1716, the son of a manufacturer of wine bottles. During Litre's extremely distinguished fictional scientific career, he purportedly proposed a unit of volume measurement that was incorporated into the International System of Units after his death in 1778.[3][4]
The hoax was mistakenly printed as fact in the IUPAC journal Chemistry International and subsequently retracted.[3][5]
claude, Émile, jean, baptiste, litre, fictional, character, created, 1978, kenneth, woolner, university, waterloo, justify, capital, denote, litres, international, system, units, usually, only, permits, capital, letter, when, unit, named, after, person, lower,. Claude Emile Jean Baptiste Litre is a fictional character created in 1978 by Kenneth Woolner of the University of Waterloo to justify the use of a capital L to denote litres The International System of Units usually only permits the use of a capital letter when a unit is named after a person 1 The lower case character l might be difficult to distinguish from the upper case character I or the digit 1 in certain fonts and styles and therefore both the lower case l and the upper case L are allowed as the symbol for litre The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology now recommends the use of the uppercase letter L 2 a practice that is also widely followed in Canada and Australia citation needed Woolner perpetrated the April Fools Day hoax in the April 1978 issue of CHEM 13 News a newsletter concerned with chemistry for school teachers According to the hoax Claude Litre was born on 12 February 1716 the son of a manufacturer of wine bottles During Litre s extremely distinguished fictional scientific career he purportedly proposed a unit of volume measurement that was incorporated into the International System of Units after his death in 1778 3 4 The hoax was mistakenly printed as fact in the IUPAC journal Chemistry International and subsequently retracted 3 5 See also editEtiological mythReferences edit BIPM Table 6 Archived from the original on 1 October 2009 Non SI units accepted for use with the SI by the CIPM NIST a b Claude Emile Jean Baptiste Litre Chem 13 News Magazine 12 September 2018 Retrieved 30 March 2024 Chem 13 News most memorable hoax Chem 13 News Magazine 28 September 2018 Retrieved 30 March 2024 Ariadne 8 October 1984 p 80 ISSN 0262 4079 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help External links editReprints of articles about the Litre hoax nbsp This article about a fictional character is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Claude Emile Jean Baptiste Litre amp oldid 1217232084, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
