5 tomatoes
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well neither astronomical unit nor light years use meters as a reference. and one of those isnt even accurate (AU)
wrote last edited by [email protected]I think AUs are just meant to mean "far away (like much much further away than the pub)".
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Do we have meter cola?
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If an alien species has 12 fingers to our 10, would they work in base 12 as normally as we use 10s? Like would their whole system end (or start) with a 0 or equivalent and not end all different?
My maths coherence is too high-school for this thinking, but now its in there.
There's really nothing special about base 10 numbering, it just feels natural to us. They probably would use base 12 and just have 2 extra symbols for the digits after 9. Example 10 x 10 = 100 in both base 10 and base 12 math. It's just the translation of that in base 12 to base 10 looks like 12 × 12 = 144 to us.
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If an alien species has 12 fingers to our 10, would they work in base 12 as normally as we use 10s? Like would their whole system end (or start) with a 0 or equivalent and not end all different?
My maths coherence is too high-school for this thinking, but now its in there.
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 20, 21, ..., A0, A1, A3, ...
You can use your hands to count in base 12 if you want to, and some cultures have done so. Just use the segments on your fingers on one hand, using your thumb to count each segment.
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The biggest argument for metric is that it's consistent. It takes 1 calories to heat 1k of water by 1 degree. State something similar in imperial units.
And isn't 1kg of water 1L? And 1L is 1000 cubic cm? So a 10x10x10 cube?
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I wish we had a metric inch because the fuzziness can be useful.
"How small do you need these veggies diced?"
"2.5cm ish" vs. "about an inch"I feel like the implied margin of error is much larger for inches, which make them useful for many things where precision isn't necessarily desirable (hemming, wargaming, moving furniture, etc..). If I'm wargaming having a limit on rounding is useful (half an inch - either round up or down), assuming I'm playing at a scale that uses inches.
Feet I have no use for, with one exception - adult human height between 5' 2" and 6' 2". There I find metric too precise (whereas to the nearest inch accounts for variance in sole thickness, hair volume, etc.).
I wasn't raised on imperial (and I'm baffled that people younger than me in the UK still talk about stones. Sixteen stone is fat, sure, but I've no idea how fat if not told in kilos) but I find inches to have their uses.
Also miles for cars - because common speeds are ~60 and ~30 mph so a road sign effectively gives the time to arrival (e.g. 13 miles on a motorway = about 13 minutes). I don't use them for actually measuring distance on a map but they're handy when driving.
We kind of do have metric inches, insofar as machinists work in 'thou's (thousands of an inch)
But that's kind of specialist -
What the heck does this mean? Is the number 5280 just painted all over billboards in Denver?
Sounds like they take their distances pretty seriously over there in the mile-high city
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People will say “one thousand kilometers”
Will they though? I don't talk about distances that large anywhere near often enough to really need a shorthand for it, personally. Had to even look up what things are approximately 1000km apart to even know what to imagine it as (it's about the distance between Paris and Berlin).
Sweden is quite long, so talking about traveling>1 000 km is not uncommon, but here we have mil, which is equal to 10 km. So on my vacation I traveled 120 mil is more useful and common
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Me watching a BBC TV show: "The suspect's home is five miles away."
shocked pikachu
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The biggest argument for metric is that it's consistent. It takes 1 calories to heat 1k of water by 1 degree. State something similar in imperial units.
100 degrees out is 100% hot. 0 degrees F is 0% hot
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What the heck does this mean? Is the number 5280 just painted all over billboards in Denver?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Pretty much. If you go to a Broncos game, you're going to see a graphic saying we're 5280 feet above sea-level at least a hundred times.
Edit: These are just some examples that in the non-public areas of the stadium to mess with opposing teams.
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The biggest argument for metric is that it's consistent. It takes 1 calories to heat 1k of water by 1 degree. State something similar in imperial units.
You mean 1 gram of water
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What the heck does this mean? Is the number 5280 just painted all over billboards in Denver?
Basically yes. We even have a local magazine called 5280.
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Again, anglocentrism strikes. Your feeling is strictly based on your personal experience with your own words. It is like when Americans claim fahrenheit is more for humans than celsius, because they are unable to fathom things they have no experience with.
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Base 12 is easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12
5,280 ft in a mile is fucking nonsense though
Base 60 can do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 12.
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Why not make it even more ambiguous by specifying the desired cutting width in "circumference of my dick".
That's too thin
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All units of measure are abstract.
I like metric because it's structured around an abstract amount. Even something like Celsius is pretty abstract, because the freezing and boiling point of water changes depending on the atmospheric pressure. The measure of a second? Why is a second, 1 second long? Why is it 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of a day?
There's other stuff based on seconds too, like Hertz, which is literally "cycles per second"I like to think about how abstract these things are, because if we were to ever try to communicate with a truly alien race, we couldn't really use numbers, because their base numbering system would be different than ours, their symbols for numbers would be different, their entire understanding of math and how to calculate stuff could be wildly different, possibly because they understand things we do not. We couldn't even say to them to communicate on a specific frequency of EM, because that frequency is based on Hertz, which is based on seconds, which is based on ????? IDFK (neither would they).
We base everything we know on the world around us, and that's entirely unique to earth. We make so many assumptions about how things are because we've only ever experienced life on this planet.The only thing that kind of makes sense is how many days of the year there are, because it's based on solid science about our solar system. It's still unique to earth, but at least it makes sense on a larger scale. Everything else? Who the hell knows. Why is a meter as long as it is? Who defined this? Why? What abstract Earth-based thing was this based on that other societies of individuals would have no point of reference to relate to?
It's wild we've made it this far, to be honest.
Anyways, I kind of got sidetracked... I guess all I'm really trying to say is that metric makes more sense than whatever the USA is doing. Even if it's just as abstract in its conception.
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What the heck does this mean? Is the number 5280 just painted all over billboards in Denver?
So many businesses and shops are named 5280. Breweries, coffee shops, bars, transmission shops, interior design shops, animal hospitals, dry cleaners, bakeries…that number is plastered on signs and advertisements everywhere.
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Me watching a BBC TV show: "The suspect's home is five miles away."
shocked pikachu
there's a very important video on the measurement rules in the UK, if you haven't seen it: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNh9z3IzG8t/
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So whose foot exactly?
Cousin Merle's (including toenails).
