MEW 269 Temperature controller

Whilst this is an interesting article and the use of a hob element may well make it into my heat treatment project, I feel it is my duty to point out that the gremlins have been at work. For example there is no way that a type k thermo couple will read nor withstand a temperature of 12600 degrees Celsius . Nor will the authors experimental furnace reach 9000 Celsius! Knock a 0 off these values and it all makes sense.

If one does want to make a cuppa with iron as the solvent it's boiling point is a mere 2861 C Lovely !

Edited By Frances IoM on 15/06/2018 17:43:48

I have had a few emails about that!

A surprising number of authors insist on using superscript zeroes for degree symbols. I try to replace them all with the proper symbol or the word degrees, as when sent to the designer and imported into Indesign all the formatting is stripped out and they become ordinary zeroes.

I usually spot these at the proofing stage, but in this case my brain saw the big numbers I was expecting and I missed the error.

In mitigation, I would say I normally have to correct this in at least one or more article per issue so sometimes I am going to miss it.

The other comment is to all contributors: I'm afraid that when I edit an article one of the first things I have to do is strip out all that careful and beautiful formatting you have lovingly applied and make the text as plain as possible. The less formatting you apply to your article (especially formulas) the more likely it is to be reproduced without mistakes!

Neil

Hi Frances,

The website is in Unicode. How you enter Unicode characters into the editor depends on your operating system. Ubuntu makes it easy: I just type ctrl-SHIFT u followed by the unicode number in hexadecimal. Space or enter terminates the hex. Windows makes it harder to do, though I have an idea there's an improvement in Windows 10.

For example:

00B5 = µ
00BC = ¼
00BD = ½
00BE = ¾
00B0 = °
00B1 = ±
03A9 = Ω
03BB = λ
03C0 = π
2103 = ℃
2109 = ℉
00F8 = ø
2116 = №

Or you could cut and paste characters from this post.

Finding the hex code is easy if you know the name of the character; just search for 'unicode ohm'. Otherwise here's a gigantic table. It's broken down by language if that helps. Usually tells you what the character is after you've found it - for example ʬ is the latin bilabial percussive. Bet that comes in useful one day. Not!

Dave

ALT 0176 ° ( Hold down the ALT key, then 0176)

£££££££?

Edited By Frances IoM on 15/06/2018 20:04:32

I would like to suggest that actually stating degrees C (or degrees F) is rather clearer, ie more easily understood, than using a tiny superscript circle followed by C (or F).

Avoid the risk ... Express all temperatures in Kelvin

MichaelG.

Feel sorry for us astronomy types. In one direction here are 15 times as many minutes and seconds as there are in the other!

It is a bit rich for Neil to blame authors for using superscript 0 instead of the degree symbol, both ME and MEW regularly get superscript meaning 'raised to the power of' wrong and print 102 rather than 10²

I suspect it was right when it left the authors, it is the publishers inadequate software that screws it up. Would it help if authors sent copy in rtf?

An alternative could be to use a specific mathematical typeface (font in computerese). This involves the normal 'roman' alphabet but for all the other characters mathematical symbols are substituted. Then, as long as the printer has the same font, such problems should annoy the editor, the proof reader, and the paying customer, much less.

The whole problem of using such symbols is one which computer and font designers seem to have been very slow to make available to us ordinary folk.

And I suggest in the meantime that clear instructions are offered to all contributors, setting out ways in which such problems might be avoided. Such as using words instead of symbols.

Regards, Tim

Never had these problems when Percy Marshall knocked out the mag with a John Bull Printing Set ...

It would help if authors used a degree symbol

It's not the shortcomings of the software, it's essential to rip out any 'hidden' formatting as part of the production process - double/multiple spaces, exotic line spacings and of course we use house fonts etc.

Many articles do things like combine tabs, paragraph indents and spaces to achieve a particular look and all these have to be taken out.

In this case I forgot to swap out the zeroes for degree symbols and didn't notice on the proof. I can't blame authors, but it helps everyone if they can use a proper degree symbol as this is less error prone.

doc, docx, rtf, odt - all fine, all prone to the same issues. The formats not to use are pub and pdf.

Neil

These are the existing instructions:

Special Characters and Formulas

Unfortunately, we can’t always get away from the need to use special symbols and formulas in engineering (e.g. 55° or Ø55mm), but they often get corrupted when changing fonts or file formats. In text that is to be read it’s better to use ‘degrees’ or ‘diameter’.

To minimise this, try only to use special characters from standard fonts. In Word it is best to use the ‘insert symbol dialogue’ and choose symbols from one of the standard fonts (e.g. Times New Roman or Arial). This give the best chance that the symbol I see is the one you used!

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 16/06/2018 12:51:25

10 percent

10 to the power 2

10deg F or C

What am I missing in using this method?

Geoff - Air piping done with one leak soon fixed.

If I have need for a special symbol then I'd pull up Character Map in windoze and pick it off in the font being used except for complex formulae best embedded as images. However a standard keyboard usually supplies enough obvious options for common stuff: 10%, 10^2 or 10'F. Indeed 10^2 is probably easier read with older eyes than 10²

pgk

Sadly the problems are still plentiful, and exchanging data from PC to Mac is part of the issue.

Sorry Neil, if your software converts something that was right into something that is wrong, it has a shortcoming. It might be difficult to avoid, but it is still there.

As for writing 10 to the power 2, that would get really unwieldy in an equation of any length, and would be ambiguous, would 10 to the power 2 divided by 5 be

10^2/5 or 10²/5

mathematical notation was developed for a good reason.