this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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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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[–] therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago
[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

How many petameters is that?

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[–] Silentiea@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've seen megameters used in the context of astronomical distances, but not terrestrial ones. I think terrestrially, the familiarity of kilometers helps with a sense of scale.

[–] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

The beauty of the metric system is you don't lose a sense of scale from using a higher unit because you can intuitively know 1Mm is 1000km.

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