3 ms·
a bit yes - but then again it's a unit Humanized, easier to read, more accessible I guess.
by al_be_back 3y ago
a bit yes - but then again it's a unit Humanized, easier to read, more accessible I guess.
- anentropic 3y agoIs it though? I can't think of any other units where we write it like that
- al_be_back 3y agoEnergy equals mass times speed of light squared, is the same as: E = mc². The former is more accessible to a general public audience (reader).
- anentropic 3y agoto be clear, I was referring to use of percentages rather than "Astronomical Unit" vs AU I could understand wanting to explain what AU stands for, and what an Astronomical Unit represents, it just seemed weird to then convert everything into percentages as well
- al_be_back 3y agoi agree, it's a bit weird. personally I'd use 0.5 rather than 50% to record the facts, and 50% to make a salient point/summary, since the latter is a higher level of abstraction (perhaps even anthropocentric)
- saiya-jin 3y agoI find it hard to believe somebody would know what exactly is AU, yet at the same time struggle with fractions (or whatever is the proper name for it), while being OK with percentages representation of same numbers.
- dylan604 3y agoThe whole point on an AU is we don't need to know an exact number. Using human relatable measurements means the numbers get mind numbingly big, fast. Even though the average human doesn't know the exact distance from the earth to the sun in meters and/or feet, they can get a rough sense of "the distance from the earth to the sun". also, at what exact moment are you taking that exact distance in meters/feet? the orbit is not exactly circular, so that radius measurement isn't the same all the time. nor does the average person know the exact radius/diameter of the earth, jupiter, or the sun, but we often see references to the earth is a fraction of jupiter and that the sun is some large number of jupiters.