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Is there any documentation on what consists of the unit system "SIBase","Imperial", "SI" and "Metric" in the UnitConvert function, and the rule of what unit is returned in the results? Cause I have notices in doing UnitConvert[Quantity[x, LengthUnit], "Metric"] sometimes returns quantity with units in m, and other times in mm.

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i dont know about documentation, but "Metric" and "SI" appear to be the same and give a unit based on the magnitude, while "SIBase" consistently gives meters.

  UnitConvert[Quantity[#, "feet"], "Metric"] & /@ {.00001, 0.001, 
       0.01, .1, 1., 10., 10000.}

{Quantity[3.048, "Micrometers"], Quantity[304.8, "Micrometers"], Quantity[3.048, "Millimeters"], Quantity[3.048, "Centimeters"], Quantity[30.48, "Centimeters"], Quantity[3.048, "Meters"], Quantity[3.048, "Kilometers"]}

  UnitConvert[Quantity[#, "feet"], "SI"] & /@ {.00001, 0.001, 0.01, .1, 
      1., 10., 10000.}

{Quantity[3.048, "Micrometers"], Quantity[304.8, "Micrometers"], Quantity[3.048, "Millimeters"], Quantity[3.048, "Centimeters"], Quantity[30.48, "Centimeters"], Quantity[3.048, "Meters"], Quantity[3.048, "Kilometers"]}

  UnitConvert[Quantity[#, "feet"], "SIBase"] & /@ {.00001, 0.001, 
       0.01, .1, 1., 10., 10000.}

{Quantity[3.048*10^-6, "Meters"], Quantity[0.0003048, "Meters"], Quantity[0.003048, "Meters"], Quantity[0.03048, "Meters"], Quantity[0.3048, "Meters"], Quantity[3.048, "Meters"], Quantity[3048., "Meters"]}

The base unit itself plays into the heuristic as well, example:

UnitConvert[Quantity[.158125 10.^-4, "light year"], "Metric"] -> 1. au
UnitConvert[Quantity[93. 10^6, "Miles"], "Metric"] -> 1.49669 10^8 km
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  • $\begingroup$ I like your answer, maybe Helpful: Doku andNIST. $\endgroup$
    – user9660
    Feb 20, 2015 at 4:20

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