Physical-type correctness in scientific Python

07/17/2018

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by   Marcus Foster, et al.

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The representation of units and dimensions in informatics systems is barely codified and often ignored. For instance, the major languages used in scientific computing (Fortran, C and Python), have no type for dimension or unit, and so physical quantities are represented in a program by variables of type real, resulting in the possibility of unit or dimensional errors. We demonstrate the limitations of two Python unit-libraries and present a justification and method for checking kind-of-quantity.