3 ms·

It's not so strange - a lot of our natural experience of the universe is within 3 orders of magnitude of the base units we use. Those are very commonly referenc

It's not so strange - a lot of our natural experience of the universe is within 3 orders of magnitude of the base units we use. Those are very commonly referenced and as such have common prefixes.

chrisshroba 4y ago
Agreed, I can think of lots of use cases that come up in day to day life: - decade - century - decagon - centimeter - decimal system - decathlon - centipede edit: admittedly, hecto is pretty rare and centi is often used for both 1/100 and 100
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  ah yes, the centipede. Famously the unit of measure of one hundred pedes.
  - throwaway821909 4y ago
    well... yes? > Centipedes (from New Latin centi-, "hundred", and Latin pes, pedis, "foot")
- GuB-42 4y ago
  The hectopascal is the most common unit for atmospheric pressure. It replaced the equivalent millibar to match SI units. Standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013 hPa. Hectolitres are commonly used in the food and drink industry. For example wineries and breweries typically measure their production in hectolitres. Not exactly hecto but land, especially farm land is often measured in hectares. It is a non-SI metric unit equivalent to the square hectometer or 10000 square meters. We most likely kept the name because "hectare" sounds better than "square hectometer". As expected, 1 hectare is worth 100 ares, but ares and its other multiples are much less used than hectares.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    Ares is 100 Square metres. Not to be confused with acres, which is around 4047 Square metres. 2471 acres per hectare.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
      So you're saying there are roughly 2.5 hectacres per hectare.
runarberg 4y ago
> a lot of our natural experience of the universe is within 3 orders of magnitude of the base units we use. That may be in large part because of the unit prefixes we use. That is we think of these things in 3 orders of magnitudes because our unit prefixes come in three orders of magnitude but not the other way around. I think a much likelier explanation is the fact that many European languages (most importantly French and English) stop naming each decimal order after a thousand. If there was a word for ten-thousand—say fiorthom—but not a hundred-thousand (ten-fiorthom), surely these prefixes would map be multiples of 10⁴ as well.

It's not so strange - a lot of our natural experience of the universe is within 3 orders of magnitude of the base units we use. Those are very commonly referenced and as such have common prefixes.

chrisshroba 4y ago

Agreed, I can think of lots of use cases that come up in day to day life: - decade - century - decagon - centimeter - decimal system - decathlon - centipede edit: admittedly, hecto is pretty rare and centi is often used for both 1/100 and 100

idiotsecant 4y ago
ah yes, the centipede. Famously the unit of measure of one hundred pedes.
- throwaway821909 4y ago
  well... yes? > Centipedes (from New Latin centi-, "hundred", and Latin pes, pedis, "foot")
GuB-42 4y ago
The hectopascal is the most common unit for atmospheric pressure. It replaced the equivalent millibar to match SI units. Standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013 hPa. Hectolitres are commonly used in the food and drink industry. For example wineries and breweries typically measure their production in hectolitres. Not exactly hecto but land, especially farm land is often measured in hectares. It is a non-SI metric unit equivalent to the square hectometer or 10000 square meters. We most likely kept the name because "hectare" sounds better than "square hectometer". As expected, 1 hectare is worth 100 ares, but ares and its other multiples are much less used than hectares.
- bruce511 4y ago
  Ares is 100 Square metres. Not to be confused with acres, which is around 4047 Square metres. 2471 acres per hectare.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    So you're saying there are roughly 2.5 hectacres per hectare.

runarberg 4y ago

> a lot of our natural experience of the universe is within 3 orders of magnitude of the base units we use. That may be in large part because of the unit prefixes we use. That is we think of these things in 3 orders of magnitudes because our unit prefixes come in three orders of magnitude but not the other way around. I think a much likelier explanation is the fact that many European languages (most importantly French and English) stop naming each decimal order after a thousand. If there was a word for ten-thousand—say fiorthom—but not a hundred-thousand (ten-fiorthom), surely these prefixes would map be multiples of 10⁴ as well.