Naked Number Catastrophe

I was doing some IT work for my Science lesson when I came across this article:

After a nine month trip to Mars, the Mars Climate Observer spacecraft was lost as a result of Naked Numbers.  Numbers communicated from Lockheed Martin in Colorado to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California were left unit-less.  Naked numbers, being completely meaningless, left engineers to guess at their meaning.  The confusion created by improperly dressed numbers caused the loss of a $125 million spacecraft and the waste of a 9 month journey to Mars.  Thankfully, no lives were lost.

Lockheed Martin was sending daily course adjustments to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with numbers that should have been wearing the English units of "pound-seconds" to describe the amount of impulse which should be applied to the spacecraft to adjust its course.  When these naked numbers arrived at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers assumed that these were specifying the amount of impulse in metric units of "newton-seconds".  Simply labeling the units that were being used would have prevented this tremendous loss.  A group of physics teachers in Ithaca, New York hope to bring a proposal to Capitol Hill that would ban the use of naked numbers in the United States.  Further efforts are being used to convince the United Nations to apply a similar law to the World.  Until such a law is passed, physics teachers everywhere will have to settle for simply marking answers as wrong if they are not labeled with proper units.  Math teachers are urged to contribute to the solution not the problem.

 This article I found interesting as it applies to our daily lives as well. When we are doing our problem sums for mathematics everyday, we have to remember to write down units. The importance of these units are demonstrated in this article above. Without this units, we will not be able to accurately comprehend and do things. Only with this units can we function properly and base our calculations and finding on these units.


Due to the fact that we in Singapore are not using "Naked" numbers, and we are forced to write down the units, after some time, you will find that it has become a habit and you will not find it troublesome to write down units which many have as a misconception of a waste of time. I think that these units can make a very big difference as it may make a difference between life and death in certain situations.


I hope that one day, these numbers will be "dressed up" properly with the units required and I think it is time we start not to take units for granted! :D