Physical (or scientific) values (or quantities) are expressed as the numerical factor and a unit. If you do arithmetic with physical values you must take into account both:

• the number and
• the unit.

This Lua module helps you to keep track of the units in your computation in lua scripts.

The general idea for this module has been taken from the project Lua Physics Calculator of Ryan Russell (thank you very much for all the cool ideas!). You should have a look at the Physics Calculator if you want to calculate in a lua shell interactively - it's sensationally easy! If you plan to write a bigger Lua program and you like the OOP style you might want to go with physvalue.

You can look at the file example.lua to have some simple examples. But here is the computation for a bike tour:

pv=require('physvalue')

-- Define the start and end readings of the speedometer
myBestSpeed = pv:new('BestSpeed', 31.3, 'km/h')
travelStart = pv:new('Start', 12445.4, 'km')
travelEnd = pv:new('End', 12522.6, 'km')
-- The duration of the tour. We must add hours and minutes.
duration = pv:new('Duration', 7, 'h') + pv:new('', 43, 'min')

-- We can compute the average speed as we would do with numbers
averageSpeed = (travelEnd - travelStart) / duration
-- We set a name for the variable
averageSpeed:setId('Speed')

-- We print the variables formatted nicely                                        --Result
print(travelStart:format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s"))                                 --Start   :     12445.40 km      
print(travelEnd:format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s"))                                   --End     :     12522.60 km      
print((travelEnd-travelStart):setId('Distance'):format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s"))   --Distance:        77.20 km      
print(duration:format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s"))                                    --Duration:         7.72 h       
-- averageSpeed has the internally used SI units
print(averageSpeed:format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s"))                                --Speed   :         2.78 s^-1*m 
-- We add the desired unit for our output
print(averageSpeed:format("#i-8s: #v12.2f #u-8s", 'km/h'))                        --Speed   :        10.00 km/h     

-- We can compare physical values like numbers
if averageSpeed > myBestSpeed then
  myBestSpeed = averageSpeed
  print('New record!')
else
  -- String concatenation is simple
  print('You missed your best speed of ' .. myBestSpeed )                         --You missed your best speed of 31.3 km/h   
  -- Unit conversion takes place with string concatenation
  print('or ' .. (myBestSpeed .. 'm/s') .. ' in SI units.')                       --or 8.69444 m/s in SI units.
end

The output is the following:

Start   :     12445.40 km      
End     :     12522.60 km      
Distance:        77.20 km      
Duration:         7.72 h       
Speed   :         2.78 s^-1*m             (this is OK but looks ugly!!)
Speed   :        10.00 km/h               (this looks better)
You missed your best speed of 31.3 km/h   
or 8.69444 m/s in SI units.

The class PhysValue supports the Lua operators +, -, *, /, and ^ with their normal mathematical meanings. The operator .. converts a value into certain units. For example, pv:new('', 1, 'mm')..'km' will give 1e-007 km, the number of kilometers in a millimeter.

The class define the following useful functions:

Most of the SI units and other common units are available.

• m - meters
• g - grams
• s - seconds
• A - amperes
• K - kelvin
• mol - moles
• cd - candela
• rad - radians
• sr - steradians
• Hz - hertz
• N - newtons
• Pa - pascals
• J - joules
• W - watts
• C - coulombs
• V - volts
• F - farrads
• Ohm - ohms (Ω)
• S - siemens
• Wb - webers
• T - teslas
• H - henry
• lm - lumens
• lx - lux
• kat - katal
• min - minutes
• hr - hours
• day - days
• deg - degrees (angle)
• ha - hectares
• L - liters
• tonne - tonnes (metric)
• Ang - Ångström (Å)
• eV - elctron volts
• Da - Dalton, former atomic mass units (amu)
• mi - miles
• ft - feet
• inch - inches
• lb - mass pounds
• lbf - pounds force
• hp - horsepower
• bar - barometric pressure

Most of the units can be prefixed with the following symbols:

• k=1e3 - kilo
• M=1e6 - Mega
• G=1e9 - Giga
• T=1e12,-- Tera
• da=1e1 - deka
• h=1e2 - hekto
• d=1e-1 - dezi
• c=1e-2 - centi
• m=1e-3 - milli
• u=1e-6 - micro
• n=1e-9 - nano
• p=1e-12 - pico

The table PhysValue.c contains the following physical constants:

• c=PhysValue:new('c', 2.99792458e8, 'm/s') - Speed of light in vacuum
• e=PhysValue:new('e', 1, 'eV/J*C') - charge of electron
• G=PhysValue:new('G', 6.67259e-11, 'N*m^2/kg^2') - Newtonian constant of gravity
• g_0=PhysValue:new('g_0', 9.80665, 'N/kg') - Standard gravity accelaration on earth
• mElectron=PhysValue:new('mElectron', 9.10939e-31, 'kg') - Mass of electron
• mNeutron=PhysValue:new('mNeutron', 1.67262e-27, 'kg') - Mass of neutron
• mProton=PhysValue:new('mProton', 1.67492e-27, 'kg') - Mass of proton
• epsilon_0=PhysValue:new('epsilon0', 8.854e-12, 'C^2/(N*m^2)') - Electric constant (vacuum permittivity)
• k=PhysValue:new('k', 8.987551787e9, 'Nm^2/C^2') - Coulomb's constant 1/(4pi*epsilon_0)
• N_A=PhysValue:new('N_A', 6.02214129e23, '1/mol') - Avogadro's number

There is currently no conversion of temperature units, e.g. no conversion from Kelvin to Celsius or Fahrenheit. The problem is that these units don't have a common zero point, i.e. 0 Kelvin is not 0 Celsius. This gives additional problems as one has to specify if a value is an absolute or a relative value (a difference). It is not impossible to add this feature but it is not done yet.

A time can be expressed in hours or minutes or seconds but there is no possibility to convert a time value into a string in HH:MM:SS format e.g.. There are a lot other tools that can do this. Go ahead with these.

The module uses middleclass for object-orientation. The necessary file middleclass.lua is added to the repository for your convenience. The unit tests are written with use of luaunit. The necessary file luaunit.lua is added to the repository for your convenience.

The code is documented using ldoc. So have a look at the documentation.

PhysValue is distributed under the MIT license.