Re: Ångstrøm symbol

From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 00:10:23 EST

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    As Stefan Persson already observed, U+212B ANGSTROM SIGN (Å) exists in
    Unicode alongside U+00C5 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE (Å) only
    because both characters were present in some legacy character set with
    which Unicode had to maintain round-trip compatibility.

    -Doug Ewell
     Fullerton, California

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Wm Sean Glen
    To: David Oftedal ; unicode@unicode.org
    Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 6:18 pm
    Subject: Re: Ångstrøm symbol

    Dear David,
    There is a letter in the Swedish alphabet (capital A with a ring above).
    Some Swede by the name of Ångstrøm was a scientist and worked with light
    and color. He came up with a convenient was to accurately measure the
    color of light. That measurement was named after him and given the
    symbol (capital A with a ring above). The next time you see one of those
    laser pointer pens take a look at the label. It will say 670 nm which
    means 670 nanometers. The red light has a wavelength of 670 billionths
    of a meter. An Ångstrøm is equal to ten nanometers so that red light
    would be described as 67Å. When Kodak develops your film, they calibrate
    their equipment by looking for some common color like sky blue and
    making that equal to a standard Ångstrøm value. I don't know why Unicode
    implemented it twice. We use a regular old k for kilo and M for Mega.
    When it comes to other scientific symbols, we still use a Greek
    uppercase omega to represent ohms of electrical resistance and lowercase
    omega to represent rotational speed.

    Wm Seán Glen
    -----Original Message-----
    From: David Oftedal <david@start.no>
    To: unicode@unicode.org <unicode@unicode.org>
    Date: Saturday, February 15, 2003 8:54 AM
    Subject: Ångstrøm symbol

    Hi,

    One of you mentioned that Unicode is reluctant to make symbols for
    things like TM, that are really only composed of other characters.

    Yet I read on someone's website that there's an Ångstrøm (Or Ångström, I
    Am Not A Swede) symbol that's exactly identical to the Scandinavian Å.



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