• COMMENT

Stop squandering data: make units of measurement machine-readable

In the age of big data, it is time to ensure that units are routinely documented for easy, unambiguous exchange of information.
By
  1. Robert Hanisch

    1. Robert Hanisch is the director of the Office of Data and Informatics at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, and the chair of the CODATA Task Group on Digital Representation of Units of Measurement (DRUM).

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Stuart Chalk

    1. Stuart Chalk is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  3. Romain Coulon

    1. Romain Coulon is a member of the Ionizing Radiation Department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), Sevres, France.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  4. Simon Cox

    1. Simon Cox is a research scientist in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Land and Water Environmental Information Systems programme, Melbourne, Australia.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  5. Steven Emmerson

    1. Steven Emmerson is a software engineer and author of the UDUNITS system at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  6. Francisco Javier Flamenco Sandoval

    1. Francisco Javier Flamenco Sandoval is the director of informatics and communication at the National Metrology Centre (CENAM), Querétaro, Mexico.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  7. Alistair Forbes

    1. Alistair Forbes is a fellow in mathematical modelling and experimental data analysis at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  8. Jeremy Frey

    1. Jeremy Frey is a professor of physical chemistry and head of computational systems chemistry at the University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  9. Blair Hall

    1. Blair Hall leads the Digital Metrology program at the Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand, Lower Hutt, New Zealand.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  10. Richard Hartshorn

    1. Richard Hartshorn is a professor in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; and Secretary General of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  11. Pascal Heus

    1. Pascal Heus is an independent consultant in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  12. Simon Hodson

    1. Simon Hodson is the executive director of the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (CODATA), Paris, France.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  13. Kazumoto Hosaka

    1. Kazumoto Hosaka is the deputy director of the Research Institute for Physical Measurement, National Metrology Institute of Japan, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  14. Daniel Hutzschenreuter

    1. Daniel Hutzschenreuter is a member of the Metrology for Digital Transformation Department, National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB), Braunschweig, Germany; and chair of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) Digital SI Expert Group.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  15. Chu-Shik Kang

    1. Chu-Shik Kang is a staff scientist at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon, South Korea.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  16. Susanne Picard

    1. Susanne Picard is the coordinator of the Key Comparisons Data Base at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), Sevres, France.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  17. Ryan White

    1. Ryan White is a research officer for digital metrology at the National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

In 1999, when NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter missed its intended orbit and burned up in the Martian atmosphere, the media had a heyday over the reason: one team had used metric units in its thrust calculations, another, imperial. The navigation software that exchanged this information lacked a built-in process to check units. So when one team’s software produced data in imperial units rather than the expected metric ones, the spacecraft was set on the wrong trajectory. The result was the loss of five years of effort and hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

Access options

Access through your institution

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 605, 222-224 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01233-w

The opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the authors’ organizations or their governing bodies.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing