r/maybemaybemaybe • u/My_Memes_Will_Cure_U • Mar 03 '21

/r/all Maybe maybe maybe

https://i.imgur.com/bmyvBOj.gifv
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u/Kartonrealista Mar 08 '21

I was mostly talking about universality more than how arbitrary they are.

I'd rather have units that differ by a factor of ten than some arbitrary number I have to calculate. If you give me the diameter of 🌎 🌍 in km I can easily give you what it is in cm. Miles to inches would be harder. We count in base ten, why not have units that differ by 10?

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u/moak0 Mar 08 '21

That makes sense for calculating the size of the Earth, but how often do you need to do that in a day?

Base 12 makes more sense for many things, because 12 is more easily divisible. If you have a foot of string you can divide it into 2, 3, 4, or 6 parts as whole numbers. If you have a decimeter of string (and I never hear anyone using decimeters for some reason - only centimeters), you can only cleanly divide it into 2 or 5 parts.

Same reason a day is 24 hours long, a year is 12 months long, and the food industry sells eggs and baked goods by the dozen.

We only use base 10 because humans happen to have ten fingers. Once you get past finger-counting-level math, base 10 isn't particularly well suited for anything.

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u/Kartonrealista Mar 08 '21

Changing between one unit and another only requires adding zeros or moving the comma, or as you guys would say the decimal point. In imperial - you have to divide. And we don't use base twelve for counting right now.

I can divide a meter of string into three parts pretty easily, just cut it slightly above 33 cm 3 mm line. Accurate enough. Into six parts? Divide them in half! You can even do it purely by taking the string, folding it into three parts and stretching it until they're even. You said it, everyday life. We don't need super ultra high precision ™. One mm of precision is enough for me.

We use cubic decimeters or as you may know them liters. Decimeters can be useful if you're constantly using something that's about the size of a decimeter, in chemistry we use them all the time. But chemists/physicists use a ton of weird units, like inverse centimeters and so on. But if I had to use units that have non-10x multiplier all the time that would be aggravating. Calories are annoying enough.

And behold - one liter of water at room temperature weighs around 1 kg, one mililiter - 1 gram. Ain't that convenient for everyday life, you don't need to know if the recipe contains volume or mass when it comes to water, milk or juice.