4mo ago

5 tomatoes

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Oh, get off your high horse
Your basic unit for speed is m/s, but for most day-to-day purposes you use km/hr. The conversion between the two isn't even an integer!
Not only that, but your system, by virtue of being decimal, inherits all the shortcomings of our quite flawed numbering system. You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.
In my opinion, a good measuring system would make up for those shortcomings instead. It should be divisible by at least the numbers you can count on one hand. Decimal covers 2 and 5, so ideally the measurement unit would cover 3 and 4. So that would be a base 12 system. Technically 4, being 2², would be covered too, so 3 would do just fine. Ta-da! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard.
My ideal would be 21 though, get that 7 factor
If you like intervals of 1000, you'll be delighted (or mortified like me) to know that 7×11×13 is almost exactly 1000 (it's 1001)
- Not only that, but your system, by virtue of being decimal, inherits all the shortcomings of our quite flawed numbering system. You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.
  What's more 0.203 cm or 0.291 cm? How about 3/8" or 19/64"?
  How far is 1/3 of a mile? 1/3 km is 333m. How about 1/9? 1/9 km is 111m How long is 10 x 5/16"? 10 x 3.1cm is 31cm
  Yeah, a foot breaks down easy in whole inches with many factors, but that's about it
- You can also count on your finger joints (excluding thumbs) for base 12, too
  
  Okay so to fuck us all over we can go to base 9.
  We can divide evenly by 1,3,9. But actually remember:
  1/9 - .11111
  2/9 - .2222
  ....
  8/9 - .8888
  So easily divisable right? /s
- Ta-da! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard.
  That is not the win you think it is since metric only has one unit, the meter, to begin with so no conversion needed at all. 12 meters in 12 meters, three meters in three meters.
  You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.
  You technically don't have to use decimals, you can use fractions too. Ta-da! 1/3 meter. See? No repeating decimals!
  Also yall literally use the decimal system for US customary too

250 comments