I sometimes use millitonne (mt) instead of kilogram to keep people on their toes. I’ve learned that some people doesn’t like to have their weight measured in any kind of tonne.
A metric tonne (1000 kg) should be called a megagram (1 Mg).
Submitted 1 year ago by someguy3@lemmy.ca to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
deekhenbawls@lemmy.world 1 year ago
scarabic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As someone not born to the metric system but who’s tried to lean into it, this is something I’ve always found a little difficult. “A thousandth of a meter” isn’t a useful concept to me. I don’t think we are good at conceiving of things in their thousands, with good proportionality. I would rather just have a singular name like “squabbles” for milimeters and memorize an intuitive sense of what that is. I realize I can do that with the word “milimeters” too but my brain sometimes gets stuck on unpacking the math. I was reading Dune last night and the expression “millions of decaliters” really stopped me in my tracks. I felt like I had to start with one liter, a sodastream bottle, and multiply it up. I’d rather have some concept like “fuckariter” which means an Olympic swimming pool and work with that.
Not really being critical here. Metric is better. But intuitiveness is one of the qualities of a measurements system that makes it more or less appealing and I’ve always found imperial has a slight edge there that makes it harder to just drop as a complete loser of a system.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 year ago
The point isn’t to have an intuitive sense of what a millimeter is just by knowing what a meter is. You have to learn both units individually to have intuition about them. The point is to know that a measurement of 500mm is 0.5m without having to do any math in your head beyond moving a decimal point.
Shialac@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I dont see a Millimeter as a thousandth of a meter, I see it as a tenth of a centimeter
PixelOfLife@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I would rather just have a singular name like “squajibbles” for milimeters and memorize an intuitive sense of what that is. I realize I can do that with the word “milimeters” too but my brain sometimes gets stuck on unpacking the math.
This is, in fact, exactly what metric users do in their daily lives… We don’t do math in our heads every time we measure something. We know from experience how large all the units are and pick the one that’s appropriate for a given situation, just like you do.
When you measure something using inches, you don’t then say “it’s this many 1/36ths of a yard” unless you specifically need to convert it into yards for some reason.
Similarly, when we measure something using millimeters, we don’t say “it’s this many 1/1000ths of a meter”. It’s just a millimeter. Don’t get hung up on the prefix, just ignore it and treat it as a unit of a particular size.
gazter@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Intuitiveness comes with usage. When I think of a kilometre, I don’t think of a lot of metres, I just think of it as a single unit. A centimetre doesn’t send me dividing metres, I just think of a length about the width of a fingernail.
ben_dover@lemmy.world 1 year ago
if you actually use the metric system, millimeter would become that “singular name” you memorize for a certain length. but you could also tell from the name alone what’s it about roughly, squajibbles on the other hand…
Pantoffel@feddit.de 1 year ago
You just named the main advantage of the metric system as unintuitive and the opposite (squajibbles, fuckajiter, feet, toes, elbows) as the main advantage of the imperial system. Yet, you say that metric is better. I don’t understand. Why do you find metric better then?
I understand that intuitiveness is subjective and that how a person is raised or lectured alters the view on what is intuitive. From a logical perspective, however, I find the metric system much more intuitive as the names of the metrics denote exactly what we are dealing with (except for the case of tonnes). Yes, maybe the wording is confusing. But from the word itself you can infer what is meant, given you know what milli, giga, mega, nano, pico, etc mean. Its just times or divided by 1000. What is feet in miles or nautical miles? Gotta look that up!
Ghoelian@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Wait isn’t imperial the one with asinine fractions?
Like wtf is a 64th of an inch? Or a thousandth (is that how you spell that?)
Hector_McG@programming.dev 1 year ago
Coming from the UK generation that grew up during the decimalisation process, and therefore being equally comfortable with both systems, imperial measures are far less intuitive than metric. Don’t mistake simply being being used to something as it being intuitive.
We use a base 10 numeric system because that’s how many fingers & thumbs we have. Having a system of weights and measures based on that decimal system, is far more intuitive than a system that scales up through orders of distance using different scaling factors at ever order, is so unintuitive as to be absurd.
aulin@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There’s nothing wrong with doing so. Perfectly up to you, and everyone would know how much it is.
grte@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Megagram is the official SI term for the weight. Metric tonne is non-SI but happens to be equivalent to a megagram and became the more common parlance by historical accident, basically.
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Pretty sure they tried to mimic existing unit’s/terms to make it “easier”. So they used tonne to mimic ton.
yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They didn’t mimic existing units, an imperial ton is close to a metric ton, and the spelling tonne is just an alternative spelling of ton. In some parts ton means imperial ton, and tonne means metric ton, but it’s not standardized. In German, where the word originally comes from, it’s Tonne.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What is this metric shit? I’m an American! I measure weight in American units like the hundredweight and the truss and the slug!
zoe@aussie.zone 1 year ago
u guys mesure pressure with elephant stomps per giraffe square feet
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You say that like there’s a problem. It’s twenty three ox-marmots to the elephant-giraffe.
FlightyPenguin@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t know what a hundredweight is, but I’m just guessing based on American experience that it’s a unit of volume equal to 132 quarts.
jvisick@programming.dev 1 year ago
1 hundredweight = (1 qt * 32) + 100.7, of course. It’s very intuitive.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 1 year ago
burgers per bald eagle
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Chevrolet camaros per gun.
UnfortunateDoorHinge@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Ar15s per school shooting. ^^Am I doing it right?
Eheran@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Units closer related to everyday stuff are those that stick around. Like horse power or km. People don’t use Mm but instead 1’000s of km, even into the million km for cars. Even in space they still tend to use km like for the distance to the moon or sun. Only once the distances get absurdly large is there a shift to either another unit (light years) or the use of different notation (like 3.14E12 m).
aulin@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As a Swede, using units that give number above ~100 starts to get unwieldy. Hence why we use mil (1 Scandinavian mile = 10 km) once we get to triple digits in km. “It’s 60 mil to Stockholm” is immensely more natural than “it’s 600 km to Stockholm”.
too_high_for_this@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
The astronomical unit AU is commonly used for things in the solar system. 1 AU is roughly the average distance to the sun, about 150 000 000 km
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I know the metre has been defined by earth’s size, or other various things, all rather arbitrary. Wouldn’t it make sense to define it by the speed of light and a light year, divided into even portions? Start by dividing a light year (in a vacuum) by ten, and keep dividing by ten until we get a unit that is close to the useful size we are accustomed to?
That way we could scale up, and I suppose that’s going to be useful in the future.
lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I like metric wrenches, if my 5mm doesnt fit I can try the 6mm. Most nuts and bolds are not metric, so I end up figuring what comes next if my 1/2" doesn’t fit. is it like 33/64th? 34/64th? 17/32nd?
WestHej@lemmy.world 1 year ago
After reading the comments, I’ve noticed a point that is missing from the other comments. We like to measure things relative to other things. Therefore we should use a unit of measure which you can compare the entire range of expected values for that question simply.
For example how far away is my nearest town centre? 1km. How far away is the nearest city? 10km. How far is it across the country? 500km, How far is it across the continent? 5,000km. How far is it around the equator? 40,000km.
By using all km in this case it’s easy to get an idea of the relative distances. But you wouldn’t measure your height as 0.0018km. Just my own thoughts!
Lt_Cdr_Data@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
That’s what unit prefixes are for… you can measure your height in cm
Aussie_Damo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You measure your height in metres as in 1.8m or 180cm and for little things it’s mm (millimetres) or cm if it’s less then 1m.
It scales alot easier then the US measurement system of anything other then the simple metric system.
over_clox@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds good to me 👍
Venicon@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Seconded. Who do we need to update?
Late2TheParty@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ll call the king!
Ummm… I seem to have misplaced the number.
fernfrost@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I prefer Gigamilligram
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 year ago
But then what would a metric fuckton be?
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
A Megafuck.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
2.2 shitloads.
tunetardis@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I’ve often wondered why the kilogram was not called the gram when the former is commonly cited as the official unit of mass? I guess it doesn’t really matter much since it’s easy to convert between units. That’s sort of the point of metric, but still…
Astrealix@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Cuz the gram came before the SI system and the kilogram is a much more useable unit. The original m-g-s are based on physical things, like m being a subdivision of the length from the North Pole to the Equator going through Paris, and s being related to the time of a pendulum with certain length swinging or smth
tunetardis@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I remember in some old astronomy textbooks they used units based on CGS (cm-g-s) as opposed to MKS (m-kg-s). It was pretty weird, as they had terms to go with that system like dynes instead of newtons for force. But at least it wasn’t imperial.
aulin@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Which is 1 cm³ of water if we want to stay in SI. And if that’s the basis for it, then why not make a gram = the weight of 1 dm³ of water and then we wouldn’t need a prefix for weights in the stuff-we-usually-carry-around range. It still doesn’t make sense to me to have a prefixed unit being the base unit.
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Apparently it was going to be, but they chose the kilogram instead.
tunetardis@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Fair enough. But it’s interesting right? Like the litre lines up with the kilogram (for fluid measures) but they don’t call it a kilolitre for consistency’s sake?
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 year ago
we do call them megagrams?
It’s all either Megagrams / hectare or tons / acre in my work…
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
What country and industry do you work that calls it megagram?
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Carbon forestry. and global, but I work mostly with US companie
niktemadur@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A self-referencing metric tonne should be called a Metagram.
DefinitelyNotBirds@lemmy.world 1 year ago
American moment
Mr_Blott@feddit.uk 1 year ago
This is hilariously archaic 😂
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Such a pity that kg is the base unit because it doesn’t line up with the rest of the base units in terms of prefixes.
Bring back the grave!
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 year ago
More about this and other (un)popular opinions about the metric system: nayuki.io/…/common-mistakes-when-using-the-metric…
alvvayson@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A megagram is 1000 kg, by definition. It’s symbol is Mg.
In metric countries, we just use the word “ton” as shorthand/slang for it, since it is an easier term and was well known.
The only reason the US calls it a metric ton, is because they have archaic units (long and short tons).
Metric countries don’t call it a metric ton.
DharmaCurious@startrek.website 1 year ago
No one in the US knows WTF a long and short ton are. A ton is 2k lbs. And most Americans probably don’t even know the exact weight of a ton outside of “a shit load.”
For the most part, we generally only use pounds, feet, miles. Everything else is a mystery. Even ounces, cups and gallons are some fucking magical mystery. Just follow the recipe.
I switched everything to metric years ago, and have never been happier. It made a huge difference in most of the things I do, having a system that makes internal sense. The only thing I still routinely use standard for is sewing, because it’s damn near impossible to find any patterns or things like cutting mats in metric in the right sizes for quilting.
yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There recently was a discussion on lemmy where several US citizens (one of them allegedly an engineer…) tried to explain to me that metric might be „more precise“ (? 😂) but the imperial system more practical, because „everybody knows what a foot is“. When I asked them to add feet to miles I got shouted at (in CAPS) that noone (ever) does that. 🤷♀️
ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Canada does, because we’re mostly metric but still do enough business with the US that we’re sorta half and half
cbarrick@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, but what about the metric shit-ton?
gazter@aussie.zone 1 year ago
I always forget- is that 100 fuckloads?
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
We call it a metric tonne in Canada.
ME5SENGER_24@lemm.ee 1 year ago
How to measure like a Canadian
yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee 1 year ago
That’s because you only metricated 40y ago.
Akareth@lemmy.world 1 year ago
johsny@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I only use that term when I call a lot of items “a metric fuckton of stuff”