3 ms·
In metric land we just tend to standardise measurements of things to fit into easily divisible numbers and keep our internally consistent system of units. E.g.
by kungtotte 8y ago
In metric land we just tend to standardise measurements of things to fit into easily divisible numbers and keep our internally consistent system of units.
E.g. IKEA cabinets are 60cm wide, and so are most appliances like fridges. Double-wide things are 120cm etc. Pre-cut lumber is sold by 120cm lengths, sheetrock is 120x240cm etc.
All the easy division, plus the fancy units.
- hedora 8y agoSo, you’re saying that europe is about to switch away from meters to “ikeas” as the canonical unit? With brexit, it should be easy for the brits to lead the charge. I for one welcome the day when all the dimensions of all manmade objects are either products of numbers in the set {5, 3, 2, 1} or the set {1/2, 1/3, 1/5}. It will drastically simplify real world long division and factoring, and also lead to tighter packing of shipping containers. Knowing apple, they’ll screw it all up when they drop some port and shrink some device from 1/6000 to 1/6001 thick.
- nojvek 8y agoMetric system is beautiful. Here’s a little poem 1 litre of water weights 1 kilogram and fills a 10cm cube to its brims. At 0 centigrade, it freezes, and at 100 it steams. Let’s try imperial units. 1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds and fills 6.8in cube to its brims. At 32 farenheit it freezes and 212 it steams. Yuck!
- stephengillie 8y ago1 fluid ounce of water was supposed to weigh 1 ounce. But municipal differences have foiled that equivalency over time. The goal with Metric is that this won't happen - we'll see how long it takes for one group to claim their meter is 1.1 official meters.
- chromaton 8y agoThis has to do with Preferred numbers and ISO 2848: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_2848 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_2848
- oasisbob 8y agoAhhh, thank you. I knew there had to be some standard behind their preferred number use - just didn't know what it might be. The number of Ikea things that you can mash together and have work is awesome.
- mbfg 8y agoit's "curious" that there isn't a standard metric time. We are all happy with our Imperial clocks, i guess.
- jobigoud 8y agoSome science fiction authors like Charles Stross I think (or was it Vernor Vinge) have used kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc. as units of time for space faring civilizations.
- zczc 8y agoThere were attempts, the latest was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time