170
why don't people say mega meters
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
170 points (100.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
29652 readers
375 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics (NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out)
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
nobody will stop you, i've seen some publications use gigagrams instead of thousands of tons
weirdly enough SI unit for mass is kg not grams
I've always found that strange. I guess a kilogram is a lot closer to "human scale" than a gram, maybe that's why they picked it.
SI also does meter instead of cm, so it overall checks out.
Having meter as a base unit makes more sense than kg because meter lacks any prefix.
But that is like a giant difference in what they usually measure
yeah humans do really need a small, inch and cm, a medium, meter and feet, and a big, mile and km.
My physics teacher once told us that this was due to the influence of disciplines that calculate with huge masses, say in astrophysics the weight of a planet or the the amount of oxygen within it. Don't know how much of it is true but the basic tenet of everyone preferring the numbers that they work with on a daily basis having as few prefixes as possible as it makes mentally handling and remembering them easier.