Why would a database researcher care about issues of measurement units?
The basic answer is that I am interested in technologies for facilitating the sharing of data, especially scientific and engineering data. The adoption of common measurement units (e.g., SI metric units) is a major step forward in facilitating such sharing of data. Issues of measurement units and dimensionality are important aspects of the semantics of data, and should included in the design of all database systems and data exchange formats. However, current practice in most database management systems and databases is abysmal, with measurement units often inadequately documented and dimensional consistency rarely enforced. Thus it is perfectly legal in SQL to add mass and length together, even though is obviously nonsense. I have been (and continue to be) interested in issues around the specification of dimensionality and measurement units in databases and in data exchange formats. I am occasionally working with Bob Dragoset of NIST on development of XML markup language of measurement
