5 ms·

A question... Why do humans (or at least engineers) work so well in 1,000? I mean. I use milli/micro/nano/pico as an electrical engineer every day, and it's so

A question... Why do humans (or at least engineers) work so well in 1,000? I mean. I use milli/micro/nano/pico as an electrical engineer every day, and it's so intuitive to me. But why three orders of magnitude? Why not two orders, or five?

zirkonit 4y ago
It's a cultural thing. Chinese (and many more Asian nations) work so well in 10,000, and sometimes, it feels more natural to me as well.
- aikinai 4y ago
  The problem with languages that use 10,000 is they still use commas at 1,000, so you get a very awkward offset that then requires a mental translation between numeric and verbal representations. Sure if you grow up with it, you have that translation basically hard-coded but it’s still not ideal.
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    Which is stupid. It is annoyingly frequent that the common scale in the table is stated as powers of 1,000, not 10,000, but the scale itself is written verbally (e.g. "단위: 십억원" billion wons, much like "ten thousand dollars").
argentier 4y ago
Indians use lakh (100 000 -> 5) and crore (10 000 000 -> 7). They also group the digits differently.
- akavi 4y ago
  And then combine them into lakh crore (1,00,000,00,00,000 -> 12) Really the worst system of the 3.
  - Arnavion 4y ago
    1 lakh crore is written as 10,00,00,00,00,000. The grouping is perfectly consistent.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      Is it? If 1 lakh is 1,00,000 and 1 crore is 1,00,00,000, wouldn't the consistent grouping for 1 lakh crore be 1,00,000,00,00,000? How do you get to 10,00,00,00,00,000 by applying the same rules that apply to lakh and crore?
      - Arnavion 4y ago
        The consistency is "three digits in the first group and two in all others".
        thaumasiotes 4y ago
        But now the written form of the number is completely disconnected from the spoken form. That means you have to write out the whole number first, and then go back through and add separators in random locations. It's a rule that will tell you how to write "any number" equally, but it makes all the numbers inconsistent with each other.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thechao 4y ago
I like the fact that it's 10^3.
jfoutz 4y ago
I think (I'm no expert) 1000 made sense at the time. All of measurement seems to be more or less made up on the spot, and everybody agrees to stick with those units. Nice short writeup of the history of length here[1]. I'm not knocking metric, and I agree 1000 is nice. From our current understanding of everything, it all holds together really well. But I think that was pretty true of all units of measure that lasted any length of time. 1 https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/inches.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/inches.html
euroderf 4y ago
Percentages lack sufficient granularity. Permillages would do the trick.
- frob 4y ago
  There's even an official per-mille symbol: ‰ My graduate advisor loved slipping it into papers just to show it off. I had to dissuade him at least once because it was in the middle of a table of percentages and who is going to that the 7th entry out of 12 has ‰ instead of %?
  - euroderf 4y ago
    Document UI design issue. Don't blame the promillages !
  - MayeulC 4y ago
    Sounds like a missed opportunity to use ‰ on all rows.
- halper 4y ago
  Blood-alcohol levels are typically measured as permilles in some countries, like Sweden. 0.2 ‰ is the legal limit there. Also used in some countries in Europe to denote the grade of slopes (as in warning for steep hills). Never seen permyriads, though.
finnh 4y ago
I think it's because we can scan it easily. Groups of 4 or more can confuse the eye: when looking at 5 things, you sometimes have to take a moment to realize it's 5 not 4 (and, to a lesser extent, the same is true of 4). groups of 3 have first, middle, last - crucially _one_ middle digit, not 2+, which makes for quick comprehension.
planede 4y ago
Many natural languages have grouping at every three digits in a decimal number, but it's not universal. Like in English 10000 is ten thousand, there is no new single word for it. IMO most of it is momentum and convention, there is nothing inherently natural about grouping by every 3 digits.
- pezezin 4y ago
  Technically there is a word for 10 000: "myriad". But nobody uses it like that anymore...
  - halper 4y ago
    I've been guilty of using not only permille but also permyriad (‱) in certain work where it made sense …
    - planede 4y ago
      Just use "basis points". https://abstrusegoose.com/389 https://abstrusegoose.com/389

zirkonit 4y ago

It's a cultural thing. Chinese (and many more Asian nations) work so well in 10,000, and sometimes, it feels more natural to me as well.

aikinai 4y ago
The problem with languages that use 10,000 is they still use commas at 1,000, so you get a very awkward offset that then requires a mental translation between numeric and verbal representations. Sure if you grow up with it, you have that translation basically hard-coded but it’s still not ideal.
- lifthrasiir 4y ago
  Which is stupid. It is annoyingly frequent that the common scale in the table is stated as powers of 1,000, not 10,000, but the scale itself is written verbally (e.g. "단위: 십억원" billion wons, much like "ten thousand dollars").

argentier 4y ago

Indians use lakh (100 000 -> 5) and crore (10 000 000 -> 7). They also group the digits differently.

akavi 4y ago
And then combine them into lakh crore (1,00,000,00,00,000 -> 12) Really the worst system of the 3.
- Arnavion 4y ago
  1 lakh crore is written as 10,00,00,00,00,000. The grouping is perfectly consistent.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    Is it? If 1 lakh is 1,00,000 and 1 crore is 1,00,00,000, wouldn't the consistent grouping for 1 lakh crore be 1,00,000,00,00,000? How do you get to 10,00,00,00,00,000 by applying the same rules that apply to lakh and crore?
    - Arnavion 4y ago
      The consistency is "three digits in the first group and two in all others".
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        But now the written form of the number is completely disconnected from the spoken form. That means you have to write out the whole number first, and then go back through and add separators in random locations. It's a rule that will tell you how to write "any number" equally, but it makes all the numbers inconsistent with each other.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thechao 4y ago

I like the fact that it's 10^3.

jfoutz 4y ago

I think (I'm no expert) 1000 made sense at the time. All of measurement seems to be more or less made up on the spot, and everybody agrees to stick with those units. Nice short writeup of the history of length here[1]. I'm not knocking metric, and I agree 1000 is nice. From our current understanding of everything, it all holds together really well. But I think that was pretty true of all units of measure that lasted any length of time. 1 https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/inches.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/inches.html

euroderf 4y ago

Percentages lack sufficient granularity. Permillages would do the trick.

frob 4y ago
There's even an official per-mille symbol: ‰ My graduate advisor loved slipping it into papers just to show it off. I had to dissuade him at least once because it was in the middle of a table of percentages and who is going to that the 7th entry out of 12 has ‰ instead of %?
- euroderf 4y ago
  Document UI design issue. Don't blame the promillages !
- MayeulC 4y ago
  Sounds like a missed opportunity to use ‰ on all rows.
halper 4y ago
Blood-alcohol levels are typically measured as permilles in some countries, like Sweden. 0.2 ‰ is the legal limit there. Also used in some countries in Europe to denote the grade of slopes (as in warning for steep hills). Never seen permyriads, though.

finnh 4y ago

I think it's because we can scan it easily. Groups of 4 or more can confuse the eye: when looking at 5 things, you sometimes have to take a moment to realize it's 5 not 4 (and, to a lesser extent, the same is true of 4). groups of 3 have first, middle, last - crucially _one_ middle digit, not 2+, which makes for quick comprehension.

planede 4y ago

Many natural languages have grouping at every three digits in a decimal number, but it's not universal. Like in English 10000 is ten thousand, there is no new single word for it. IMO most of it is momentum and convention, there is nothing inherently natural about grouping by every 3 digits.

pezezin 4y ago
Technically there is a word for 10 000: "myriad". But nobody uses it like that anymore...
- halper 4y ago
  I've been guilty of using not only permille but also permyriad (‱) in certain work where it made sense …
  - planede 4y ago
    Just use "basis points". https://abstrusegoose.com/389 https://abstrusegoose.com/389