Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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why don't people say mega meters (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

My physics teacher once told us that this was due to the influence of disciplines that calculate with huge masses, say in astrophysics the weight of a planet or the the amount of oxygen within it. Don't know how much of it is true but the basic tenet of everyone preferring the numbers that they work with on a daily basis having as few prefixes as possible as it makes mentally handling and remembering them easier.