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Outside of science people invent random units, they just say three football fields or 70 school busses. Which works just fine, aside from taking effort to wri

Outside of science people invent random units, they just say three football fields or 70 school busses. Which works just fine, aside from taking effort to write and maybe making some readers feel insulted. Anytime you actually need to do anything with a number, you usually need more precision, and any new notation breaks the ability to copy and paste to a calculator, until all the calculators get support.

saulpw 2y ago
Yes, that's currently what people do (including journalists and science explainers), and it does not work just fine. In fact it's kind of unbelievable that an intelligent and educated person would defend "inventing random units" as an acceptable tactic. I mean even just from your example, which is bigger, 3 football fields or 70 school buses? And actually, anytime I need to do anything with a number, I either use a computer (in which case I'm not entering in the numbers manually), or I don't need more precision. In fact more precision completely gets in the way. Also, we have an existing "scientific notation", which is completely incapable of being copy-pasted into any calculator I've ever used.
- eternityforest 2y ago
  I have no idea which one is actually bigger, even if I did know whether a school bus is a unit of weight or length or people or money... But it works fine for the intended audience and purpose, which is usually to give a very vague idea without assuming any specialized knowledge. If they wanted to enable real reasoning with the data(which they probably should) then they could just give the actual number, in full precision. I would imagine a lot of this is just an individual thing. Some people make real decisions with mental arithmetic on a regular basis, others almost never encounter math outside of a screen, because apps have taken over a lot of the stuff that used to be done mentally.
myworkinisgood 2y ago
Notation is in the data repository. Exposition is for understanding.
hifromwork 2y ago
>Outside of science people invent random units, they just say three football fields or 70 school busses. Which works just fine, aside from taking effort to write and maybe making some readers feel insulted. Is this something people do? I only saw this in English (American I guess) online articles.

saulpw 2y ago

Yes, that's currently what people do (including journalists and science explainers), and it does not work just fine. In fact it's kind of unbelievable that an intelligent and educated person would defend "inventing random units" as an acceptable tactic. I mean even just from your example, which is bigger, 3 football fields or 70 school buses? And actually, anytime I need to do anything with a number, I either use a computer (in which case I'm not entering in the numbers manually), or I don't need more precision. In fact more precision completely gets in the way. Also, we have an existing "scientific notation", which is completely incapable of being copy-pasted into any calculator I've ever used.

eternityforest 2y ago
I have no idea which one is actually bigger, even if I did know whether a school bus is a unit of weight or length or people or money... But it works fine for the intended audience and purpose, which is usually to give a very vague idea without assuming any specialized knowledge. If they wanted to enable real reasoning with the data(which they probably should) then they could just give the actual number, in full precision. I would imagine a lot of this is just an individual thing. Some people make real decisions with mental arithmetic on a regular basis, others almost never encounter math outside of a screen, because apps have taken over a lot of the stuff that used to be done mentally.

myworkinisgood 2y ago

Notation is in the data repository. Exposition is for understanding.

hifromwork 2y ago

>Outside of science people invent random units, they just say three football fields or 70 school busses. Which works just fine, aside from taking effort to write and maybe making some readers feel insulted. Is this something people do? I only saw this in English (American I guess) online articles.