# [NTG-context] Spacing in \unit - degrees

Alan Braslau alan.braslau at icloud.com
Thu Oct 13 15:26:44 CEST 2022

On Wed, 12 Oct 2022 21:14:52 -0600
Gavin <gavinpublic at comcast.net> wrote:

> As a recovering string theorist, I cannot help but speculate that
> this rule extends to spherical coordinates in any number of
> dimensions. However, if you don’t want the space, you can use
> 135\unit{℃}, which does not add a space.

Will 135\unit{℃} ever break between the digits 135 and the "unit"?
I agree that \unit should probably use an \mbox to prevent unwanted
breaks.

The other role of \unit, I understand, is to uniformize the
representation of numbers (digits).

> > Related,
> > \unit{90°} does not seem to introduce a space, as indeed it should
> > not.

So ℃ needs to be registered as a degree and prevent any spacing.

> Also related, using \unit for just the units, and not the number, is
> useful when they follow something that is not a number, like a
> vector: $\vec v = (4.0, -3.2, 1.5)\unit{m/s}$. You frequently do
> not want a space in that situation.

Why would one not want a (small) space before m/s in the above
example?

Alan