Base-10 is rather incidental to metric: we can have a "kilofoot" just as easily as "a dozen metres". The main benefits of metric (actually SI) are: - One unit

Base-10 is rather incidental to metric: we can have a "kilofoot" just as easily as "a dozen metres". The main benefits of metric (actually SI) are: - One unit for each dimension, e.g. all distances are in metres. - The conversion factor between dimensions is 1, e.g. 1Nm = 1J, 1Pa = 1N/m^2, etc. We often use prefixes like "centi" or "kilo", but they're just multipliers rather than separate units (SI calls them "derived units"). The main problems with metric are: - Still some redundancy, e.g. litres, tonnes, hours, etc. These are avoided by SI. - The base unit of mass is confusingly called the "kilogram". Hence any conversion factor involving grams will get a 1/1000, since the gram is 1/1000 of the base unit. I wrote about this at http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2020-05-22-metric_red_herring.html http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2020-05-22-metric_red_herring.htm...