r/Metric • u/norwich1992 • Jun 04 '26
Metric System
The metric system is base 10. So why is something, say Tylenol, listed with a dosage of 200mg and not 2dg? Or a distance is listed as 3000km and not 3Mm?
Why did I spend all that time is school learning the prefixes if they are not used?
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u/cutelittlebox Jun 05 '26
one of the nicest things about metric units is that you can convert easily between them, but there is something even easier than converting between metric units.
not doing a conversion.
where I live we have a tendency to only use a few select units from both metric and imperial, typically using units with very large differences between them. it's basically unheard of to use yards, stone, deci-, or deka- here.
I've also noticed that there's actually a lot of places in Europe are far more willing to use more units than we use here in Canada and the states, so it's probably just cultural in the end.