Comment on Why a ton, and not a megagram?
13esq@lemmy.world 9 months agoThat’s the point, millis and megas make sense for things that aren’t tangible in real life. That’s exactly why we use tons and not megagrams.
Comment on Why a ton, and not a megagram?
13esq@lemmy.world 9 months agoThat’s the point, millis and megas make sense for things that aren’t tangible in real life. That’s exactly why we use tons and not megagrams.
Shialac@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They literally are the same thing. Why would you imagine them differently?
13esq@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’ve had this question quite a few times so I think that maybe I haven’t phrased my point of view so well.
What I’m trying to say is that a million of anything is something the mind can’t comprehend, you can understand the idea of it, but you can’t picture it.
It makes sense to say “my car weighs about 2 tons”, because you can compare that to a couple of ton bags of sand or two IBCs of water.
It doesn’t really make sense to say “my car weighs 2megagrams”, because no one can picture two million of anything.
Despite the terms meaning the same thing, the mental imagery is totally different and it makes sense to use a unit that makes the description tangible in the real world.