• hperrin@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    I’m always disappointed that megameter isn’t a common word. People will say “one thousand kilometers” instead of just “one megameter”.

    • Klear@quokk.au
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      I’m a fan of light nanosecond, which works out to roughly 30 cm.

    • python@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      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).

    • warm@kbin.earth
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      I’m more disappointed the world renamed one thousand million from milliard to billion.

      • chellomere@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        “the world”?

        If you came over to the other side of the pond, you’d find that most of Europe is still using milliard, billiard, trilliard etc.

        • CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          I think that’s one thing that’s actually fine about the English language though. Constantly switching between something ending with “ion” to “iard” instead of just counting up doesn’t make much sense to me personally.

          Million (1A), Milliard (1B), Billion (2A), Billiard (2B) seems odd compared to Million (1), Billion (2), Trillion (3), Quadrillion (4)

          I suppose the upside is that you don’t have to learn as many prefixes, but it’ll take another few years of inflation and wealth centralization (at least with currencies like the Euro, Dollar, or Pound) until Quadrillion is relevant in the financial sector and Mathematicians generally use letters. I suppose it makes other natural sciences a tiny bit easier, but there it’s usually written in scientific notation anyways.

          • Hoimo@ani.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 months ago

            The million-milliard system means a billion has double the zeroes compared to million, trillion has triple the zeroes, etc. In the English system, a quadrillion has 15 zeroes, so 4 times 3 plus 3? A quadrillion should have 4*6=24 zeroes.

            • CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              I must admit I still don’t see the point. Whether it’s double/triple/quadruple of a million or just 3*n+1 doesn’t seem to matter much. Of course it’d be better if a “thousand” was just called a “million” then, since that’d remove the +1, but the million milliard system doesn’t seem to have any notable advantages otherwise, especially considering every “iard” step is a .5 one, which isn’t much cleaner.

              1,000 -> 3x0+1 zeroes

              1,000,000 -> 3x1+1 zeroes

              1,000,000,000 -> 3x2+1 zeroes

              vs

              1,000,000 -> 1x6 zeroes

              (1,000,000,000 -> 1.5x6 zeroes)

              1,000,000,000,000 -> 2x6 zeroes

              (1,000,000,000,000,000 -> 2.5x6 zeroes)

              1,000,000,000,000,000,000 -> 3x6 zeroes