3 ms·

You constantly divide or multiply by powers of ten using the metric system. From liter to cubic meter? factor 1000, from meter to kilometer, factor 0.001 etc et

• gumby 8y ago
  Do you really do those calculations though? I doubt ml to cu m is all that common. I find the non-metric approach of divide by 2 (1/8, 1/16th), the convenient way to adjust measurements (e.g. drill bits) and the comfortable use of fractions (rationals) constantly (e.g. recipes for four people easily adjusted for my three-person family; dress patterns etc). Note I spent my childhood in countries that used both systems (and my adult life too) and in my university training used US, cgs and mks systems. I'm not arguing for one because it's more familiar to me. We're talking about customary human usage. Various fields use their own units from nm to parsecs and whether they should be divisible by 10 is not part of my discussion (sure, for both of these cases it's as good as any other divisor). In fact for daily use, many metric countries retain traditional units not just for daily purposes but even for things like land. The UK is the most familiar case for Americans, but many countries are similar.