https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_%C3%89mile_Jean-Baptiste_Litre

Jump to content
[ ] Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar hide
Navigation

  * Main page
  * Contents
  * Current events
  * Random article
  * About Wikipedia
  * Contact us
  * Donate

Contribute

  * Help
  * Learn to edit
  * Community portal
  * Recent changes
  * Upload file

[wikipe] Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia
Search
[                    ]
Search

  * Create account
  * Log in

[ ] Personal tools

  * Create account
  * Log in

Pages for logged out editors learn more

  * Contributions
  * Talk

Contents

move to sidebar hide

  *  
    (Top)
  *  
    1See also
  *  
    2References
  *  
    3External links

[ ] Toggle the table of contents

Claude Emile Jean-Baptiste Litre

[ ] 5 languages

  * Afrikaans
  * Francais
  * Italiano
  * Ri Ben Yu 
  * Ukrayins'ka

Edit links

  * Article
  * Talk

[ ] English

  * Read
  * Edit
  * View history

[ ] Tools
Tools
move to sidebar hide
Actions

  * Read
  * Edit
  * View history

General

  * What links here
  * Related changes
  * Upload file
  * Special pages
  * Permanent link
  * Page information
  * Cite this page
  * Get shortened URL
  * Download QR code
  * Wikidata item

Print/export

  * Download as PDF
  * Printable version

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fictional character

Claude Emile Jean-Baptiste Litre (1716-1778) is a fictional character
created in 1978 by Kenneth Woolner of the University of Waterloo to
justify the use of a capital L to denote litres.

The International System of Units usually only permits the use of a
capital letter when a unit is named after a person.^[1] The
lower-case character l might be difficult to distinguish from the
upper-case character I or the digit 1 in certain fonts and styles,
and therefore both the lower-case (l) and the upper-case (L) are
allowed as the symbol for litre. The United States National Institute
of Standards and Technology now recommends the use of the uppercase
letter L,^[2] a practice that is also widely followed in Canada and
Australia.^[citation needed]

Woolner perpetrated the April Fools' Day hoax in the April 1978 issue
of "CHEM 13 News", a newsletter concerned with chemistry for school
teachers. According to the hoax, Claude Litre was born on 12 February
1716, the son of a manufacturer of wine bottles. During Litre's
extremely distinguished fictional scientific career, he purportedly
proposed a unit of volume measurement that was incorporated into the
International System of Units after his death in 1778.^[3]^[4]

The hoax was mistakenly printed as fact in the IUPAC journal
Chemistry International and subsequently retracted.^[3]^[5]

See also[edit]

  * Etiological myth
  * False etymology

References[edit]

 1. ^ "BIPM - Table 6". Archived from the original on 1 October 2009.
 2. ^ Non-SI units accepted for use with the SI by the CIPM - NIST.
 3. ^ ^a ^b "Claude Emile Jean-Baptiste Litre". Chem 13 News Magazine
    . 12 September 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
 4. ^ "Chem 13 News most memorable hoax". Chem 13 News Magazine. 28
    September 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
 5. ^ Ariadne. 8 October 1984. p. 80. ISSN 0262-4079. {{cite book}}: 
    |work= ignored (help)

External links[edit]

  * Reprints of articles about the Litre hoax.

Stub   This article about a fictional character is a stub. You can
icon   help Wikipedia by expanding it.

  * v
  * t
  * e

*
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=
Claude_Emile_Jean-Baptiste_Litre&oldid=1221376869"
Categories:

  * Fictional character stubs
  * Hoaxes in science
  * Fictional scientists
  * 1978 in science
  * Hoaxes in Canada
  * 1978 in Canada
  * 1978 hoaxes
  * Non-SI metric units
  * Fictional characters introduced in 1978
  * Fictitious entries
  * April Fools' Day jokes
  * Nonexistent people used in hoaxes

Hidden categories:

  * CS1 errors: periodical ignored
  * Articles with short description
  * Short description matches Wikidata
  * Use dmy dates from August 2022
  * All articles with unsourced statements
  * Articles with unsourced statements from December 2020
  * All stub articles

  * This page was last edited on 29 April 2024, at 15:35 (UTC).
  * Text is available under the Creative Commons
    Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0 ; additional terms may apply.
    By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy
    Policy. Wikipedia(r) is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
    Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

  * Privacy policy
  * About Wikipedia
  * Disclaimers
  * Contact Wikipedia
  * Code of Conduct
  * Developers
  * Statistics
  * Cookie statement
  * Mobile view

  * Wikimedia Foundation
  * Powered by MediaWiki

  * Toggle limited content width