this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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Showerthoughts

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why don't people say mega meters (self.showerthoughts)
submitted 8 months ago by joel_feila to c/showerthoughts
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How come people say 5,000 km and not 5 Mm?
why not just say millions of meters or Mega meters?

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[โ€“] Drummyralf 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

In our primary schools, we learn our children mili, deci, centi, deca, hecto and kilo, and how to calculate between them.

Beyond that or below that is used either in science classes or specific usecases and not known by the whole population at large.

Since people use what they know, they'd never use mega as a common way of measuring. We mostly use km for distance, and only in specific cases we might use, say, hectometers or decameters.

5 megameter is not wrong, but I don't call 34 cm 3,4 decimeters either(unless decimeters make sense of course :p)

[โ€“] joel_feila 1 points 8 months ago

Here i learn mega, giga, tera. But show up in computer which is like place you most commonly see them.