megaton, megawatt, megapascal, megacandela (for military flares), megahertz, megajoule, megaohm, megabequerel
Comment on why don't people say mega meters
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 months ago
Familiarity I guess. Mega isn’t really a widely used prefix outside of computers. We even say tons instead of megagrams.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
pissclumps@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Megatron
Kefass@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That’s a lot of Trons
metaStatic@kbin.social 9 months ago
That's bad comedy
Turun@feddit.de 9 months ago
To be fair, mass is weird because the base unit is kg (yes, the name includes a prefactor). I have no idea how they managed to fuck it up that badly.
someguy3@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Apparently they were going to use gram for what we now call kg, but decided to make it kg. I expect it’s because we used grams so much for food.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yes, I think it’s a question of use. I can’t think of many examples where you would quickly need to know the measurement to the nearest Mm. Maybe if for some reason you deal with a lot of lunar orbits? Diameters of exoplanets?
Any earth distances we need to know with greater precision, and any stellar distances are probably better measured in light years, etc.
southernbrewer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Odometer readings
pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“I’ve driven 112.326 megameters” takes the same amount of time to say as 112,326 kilometers. 🤷♂️
person@lemm.ee 9 months ago
And yet we say megatons.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 months ago
But only in regards of nuclear bombs. Maybe it’s because of the scientific origins of these fields. Probably the same reasons why Americans measure firearm munition in mm.
ninja@lemmy.world 9 months ago
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And 7.62 is just .30 caliber rebranded
joel_feila@lemmy.world 9 months ago
and the old gauge system for shotguns.
RandomStickman@kbin.run 9 months ago
Now get ready for the 7mm-08
cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world 9 months ago
I’ve only recently gotten my foid card and am learning to shoot and that shit confuses me so much.
David_Eight@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And your mom (⌐■-■)
joel_feila@lemmy.world 9 months ago
we do list volcanic eruptions in megatons of TNT. The makers of the first a bomb pick it since the largest explosion ever made by then was a ship full explosives and some had calculated how many tons of TNT that ship was carrying
anguo@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Instead of teragrams.