‘g’ trouble

DR WALSHAW'S article on “Crowther and Numeracy” in the October 1960 issue ends by pointing out the difficulty of many engineering students in handling the gravitational acceleration ‘g’ in problems of applied mechanics. Although a great deal of this difficulty can be resolved by Dr Walshaw's methods of handling the units concerned, a contributory factor is that students rarely have placed before them a comparative table of different possible systems of units. Thus the less able students fail to realise the importance of consistency in using units in a particular problem.