5 tomatoes
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I'd assume that if we are ever communicating with aliens and trying to figure out each other's way of expressing numbers and doing math, dimensionless constants like pi, Euler's number (e), the fine structure constant, etc. will be important first steps. As you say, our units of measure are purely human inventions. But the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is the same no matter what units you use to make the measurement.
I like you.
These are all good points. Thank you.
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I've never once had to convert miles to feet or vice versa in nearly 40 years (besides a couple test questions in school). It's a total non issue in the whole SI vs US system debate
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Whilst this answer is correct, it's not entirely accurate, because it is dismissive of the root cause. The logical follow-up question is: "Why is energy billed in kWh?". If the question/cycle answer continues down this line there will probably be an answer like "because <some person> had to make a decision once, and they chose this because of <some reason>, and now we're all stuck with it because of convention."
Anyone who doesn't understand what joules are probably doesn't understand what kWh are either. If the billing convention (and every other power consumption label) used joules (of course MJ or GJ) instead, then most people would just accept that as the unit of billing and measurement, and those who understand what the units mean would have an easier time of it.
Well, the follow up answer is pretty straightforward.
Selling power by the megajoule is silly. You want a unit that puts time in the name and the unit of power that's on appliances. If I run a 35 watt fan for an hour I know I've used 35 watt hours of energy. Or I can say I've used 126 kilojoules.It's not highschool. You don't lose points for not reducing your answer all the way. The goal is to describe reality clearly, not to use the most concise units of measurement.
If I'm running a powerplant I need to know how many joules I get from my fuel and what my customers need and what my generators can deliver. The customer needs to know the efficiency of their appliances, and how how much that costs them. These are the same thing, but life isn't made simpler by having them be the same unit.
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Yes, the same way that kiloinches is technically allowed.
Engineers use milliinches all the time! They call it thous but it's the same thing.
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You should consider adopting metric and avoid these conversion steps.
It is metric as fuck
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Liters? Pints? How are you converting from distance to volume?
A yard of ale is a large beer glass, based on a glass that is quite long probably less than a metre.
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Hope you meant hat the glass is tall
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How do you do weight measurements? I noticed a lot of Americans use grams
Weight is in pounds. Only pounds. don't ask me how much a gram or a ton is.
Volume, though, I still remember "Gallon Man" from 1st grade.
2 cups in a pint
2 pints in a quart
4 quarts in a gallon
What's after gallons? not a clue.
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Base 60 can do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 12.
wrote last edited by [email protected]True.. Honestly never really thought about it, but I guess it kind of is superior
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Oh, get off your high horse
Your basic unit for speed is m/s, but for most day-to-day purposes you use km/hr. The conversion between the two isn't even an integer!
Not only that, but your system, by virtue of being decimal, inherits all the shortcomings of our quite flawed numbering system. You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.
In my opinion, a good measuring system would make up for those shortcomings instead. It should be divisible by at least the numbers you can count on one hand. Decimal covers 2 and 5, so ideally the measurement unit would cover 3 and 4. So that would be a base 12 system. Technically 4, being 2², would be covered too, so 3 would do just fine. Ta-da! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard.
My ideal would be 21 though, get that 7 factor
If you like intervals of 1000, you'll be delighted (or mortified like me) to know that 7×11×13 is almost exactly 1000 (it's 1001)
wrote last edited by [email protected]Ta-da! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard.
That is not the win you think it is since metric only has one unit, the meter, to begin with so no conversion needed at all. 12 meters in 12 meters, three meters in three meters.
You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.
You technically don't have to use decimals, you can use fractions too. Ta-da! 1/3 meter. See? No repeating decimals!
Also yall literally use the decimal system for US customary too -
Weight is in pounds. Only pounds. don't ask me how much a gram or a ton is.
Volume, though, I still remember "Gallon Man" from 1st grade.
2 cups in a pint
2 pints in a quart
4 quarts in a gallon
What's after gallons? not a clue.
You use fluid ounces and liters as well tho
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I know right? it's such an intuitive system with a convenient unit for every scale you might want to work with.
Metric? True it's nice to have the scales evenly spread
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Well, the follow up answer is pretty straightforward.
Selling power by the megajoule is silly. You want a unit that puts time in the name and the unit of power that's on appliances. If I run a 35 watt fan for an hour I know I've used 35 watt hours of energy. Or I can say I've used 126 kilojoules.It's not highschool. You don't lose points for not reducing your answer all the way. The goal is to describe reality clearly, not to use the most concise units of measurement.
If I'm running a powerplant I need to know how many joules I get from my fuel and what my customers need and what my generators can deliver. The customer needs to know the efficiency of their appliances, and how how much that costs them. These are the same thing, but life isn't made simpler by having them be the same unit.
Lot's of people are confused by watts and watt-hours tho. I think having the power rating of appliences as a rate (J/s) is more intuitive. If I use a 5MJ/s fan for 10s I used 50MJ of energy. The only inconvenience here comes from our weird time conversions, so I think J/h would be more convenient
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Urgh. There's a unit for that, it's WATTS. That's literally 77 Watts.
Phone batteries are advertised in thousand milliamp-hours
