milky  +  402634 Fri, 10 Aug 07 12:25 AM "Please don't sleep through this wake-up call. ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute Care Edition. May 2, 2001.   This is an alert from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices informing readers of a fatal medication error that occurred because of a misinterpreted decimal point. The error involved administration of morphine to a 9-month-old infant who received 5 mg instead of 0.5 mg of the drug. The order did not include a zero before the decimal point, and the nurse filling the order overlooked the omission. The child suffered a cardiac arrest and died. The case illustrates the importance of clearly communicating information about medications." A tragic story, but would you have written 0.5mg or just .5mg? If nonnative student asked you which was "correct" if written, what would you say? http://psnet.ahrq.gov/resource.aspx?resourceID=1501 milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	MrPedantic  +  402637 Fri, 10 Aug 07 12:41 AM I would say: "For values less than 1, it's customary to include a zero before the decimal point; unless the context is such that the value will never exceed 1." MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 13,616 ...opella forensis / adducit febris...

	Inchoateknowledge  +  402874 Fri, 10 Aug 07 04:25 PM Hello Milky shoddiness kills "If nonnative student asked you which was "correct" if written, what would you say?"  It is not a matter of language. Only "0.5" is accepted and adheres to internationally established mathematical and physical conventions. Inchoateknowledge Joined on Wed, May 3 2006 Senior Member 2,549 Beep! Beep! :)

	Kooyeen  +  402996 Fri, 10 Aug 07 11:20 PM Hi, .5??? Yeah, I know sometimes it's written or pronounced that way, but I think it's always (or it should be always) 0.5 in "tech" environments. Or at least I hope so. I'd never leave out a zero... btw, in Italian .5 would make no sense at all, you always need the zero. Kooyeen Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005 Italy Senior Member 4,933 Parental Advisory / Explicit Posts