# Moles/Liters doesn't get simplified to Molar even though Molar*Liters gets simplified to Moles

Why can't Mathematica 9 simplify mol/L to M, when it can simplify M*L to mol?

 Quantity["Moles" / "Liters"] // UnitSimplify
(* => 1 mol/L *)

Quantity["Molar" * "Liters"] // UnitSimplify
(* => 1 mol *)


And is there a way to fix this behaviour?

• Perhaps this is because molar is not in the base SI system and mole is? – Sjoerd C. de Vries Aug 21 '13 at 22:07
• @Sjoerd: I'm not sure if the base vs non-base unit is the issue here. The example in the documentation is UnitSimplify[Quantity[1, ("Joules"/"Seconds")]] which yields the non-base SI Quantity[1, "Watts"]. – Simon Oct 13 '13 at 12:12

I can't comment on whether this functionality is by design or by omission; however, to fix this behavior, one can use UnitConvert

Quantity["Moles" / "Liters"] // UnitSimplify
UnitConvert[%,"Molar"]

(* 1 mol/L *)
(* 1 M *)

• Also, there's no problem doing calculations like Quantity[3, "Moles"/"Liters"] - Quantity[1, "Molar"] – Jason B. Jul 22 '16 at 19:14