oompy 1.3.4

Tools for working with physical units and quantities

OOMpy a/k/a order-of-magnitude python

OOMpy is a python package for working with physical units and quantities. Unlike astropy it works in gaussian units, supports a multitude of physical dimensions, constants, and conversion between them.

Installation

pip install oompy

Usage

Importing the main objects:

# import units and constants
from oompy import Units as u
from oompy import Constants as c

Simple manipulations and unit conversions

Several common usage examples:

# example #1
m_m87 = 6.5e9 * u.Msun
rg_m87 = c.G * m_m87 / c.c**2
rg_m87 >> 'au'
#       ^
#       |
# basic conversion
#
# Output: 64.16104122314108 au

# example #2
psr_bfield = 1e12 * u.G    # magnetic field in Gauss
gold_density = 19.3 * u.g / u.cm**3
((psr_bfield / c.c)**2).cgs
#                        ^
#                        |
#                 convert to cgs
#
# Output: 1112.6500560536185 g cm^-3
#
(psr_bfield / c.c)**2 / gold_density >> ""
#
# Output: 57.650261971690085

# example #3
gamma_factor = 1000
b_field = u.MG        # = Mega Gauss 
omega_B = (c.q_e * b_field / (c.m_e * c.c))
sync_omega = gamma_factor**2 * omega_B

c.hbar * sync_omega >> 'keV'
#                       ^
#                       |
#             understands powers of 10 prefixes 
#               (from 1e-12 to 1e18)
#
# Output: 11.576759893742388 keV

# example #4
# get the reduced physical type of the quantity (i.e., dimension in base units)
~(c.hbar * sync_omega)
#
# Output: {<Type.MASS: 3>: Fraction(1, 1), <Type.LENGTH: 1>: Fraction(2, 1), <Type.TIME: 2>: Fraction(-2, 1)}

# example #5
# compare physical quantities in arbitrary units
(c.R_sun >> 'ly') == c.R_sun # True
c.M_sun < (c.m_e >> "lb") # False
c.R_sun >= (c.m_e >> "lb") # Error: incompatible units

To see all units and/or constants:

u.all
c.all

Create your own quantities:

from oompy import Quantity
# example #4
my_speed = Quantity('25 m sec^-1')
#                      ^
#                      |
#                 as a string
rabbit_speed = Quantity(55, 'mi hr^-1')
#                         ^
#                         |
#                     as a tuple
elephant_speed = Quantity('km hr^-1')
(elephant_speed * my_speed / rabbit_speed) >> 'ly Gyr^-1'
#                                                  ^
#                                                  |
#                                           converts lightyear per Gigayear :)
#
# Output: 0.9421232705492877 ly Gyr^-1

Vague conversions

This technique enables a comparison between incompatible units under certain assumptions. For instance, one might assume that we consider a photon, and thus its energy, wavelength and frequency are connected via c and h.

from oompy import Assumptions as assume

# uses h
freq = 5 * u.GHz
freq >> assume.Light >> "cm"
#
# Output: 5.995849160000001 cm

# uses h-bar as freq has a dimension of radians per second
freq = 2 * c.pi * u.rad / u.sec
freq >> assume.Light >> "eV"
#
# Output: 4.1356667496413186e-15 eV

# temperature to/from energy
10000 * u.K >> assume.Thermal >> "eV"
#
# Output: 0.8617339407568576 eV

To list all the available assumptions:

list(assume)

For developers

Testing the code is done in three steps using black to check the formatting, mypy to check the types and typehints, and pytest to run the tests. First install all the dependencies:

pip install black mypy pytest

Then run the tests one-by-one:

black oom --check --diff
mypy oom
pytest

These tests are also run automatically on every commit using GitHub Actions.

To do

• add more units & constants
• (added in v1.1.0) comparison of quantities (==, !=, >, <, >=, <=)
• (added in v1.1.0) conversion with an rshift (>>) operator
• (added in v1.1.0) base unit extraction (with ~)
• (added in v1.2.0) add a possibility to perform vague conversions (e.g. Kelvin to eV, Hz to erg) etc.
• (added in v1.3.0) unit tests
• distance to redshift vague conversion
• add formatting and TeX support
• add a way to work with scaling relations