Comment by 2143 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2143 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I don't know about you but for most people multiplication/division by 10 is easier to do than doing those same operations by 1760 or 2.54 (or 12, or 36, or...). Judging by your parent comment, I trust that those numbers are familiar for you ;)

How much yards is 523 miles?

And, how many metres is 523 kilometres?

-------

You might want to read up about SI base units [1]. That gives precise definitions of the fundamental quantities in terms of other constants, such that it wouldn't change ever.

Like, a metre has been defined as the distance light travels in a given amount of time (this constant amount of time is of course a very small fraction of a second). It's never going to change. If it had been defined as the length of a horse tail, then it would change depending on the horse you use.

(Of course, there's a lot more to it, but I'm omitting the details here).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit

How often does one need to convert miles into yards?

Of course I know about the SI base units, which effectively remove the ability of ordinary people to tinker with, use, and reason about measurements by placing the system in the hands of ultra-experts. Just consider what a diversity of miles used to be enjoyed by the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile#Historical.

It is impossible to return to the pre-standardization days, and I do not argue that we should. Many people enjoy savoring the differences that other cultures provide in terms of architecture, cuisine, language, etc. and decry the destruction of cultural differences wrought by things like tourism, globalism, capitalism, whatever. I mourn the loss of local measurements just like I do the loss of vernacular languages, architectural styles, styles of dress, foods, all that.

> Of course I know about the SI base units, which effectively remove the ability of ordinary people to tinker with, use, and reason about measurements by placing the system in the hands of ultra-experts.

It’s the complete opposite, in fact. A simpler way of defining unit helps non-specialist understand them, and not only people who’ve memorised dozens of arbitrary conversion factors.

> How often does one need to convert miles into yards?

Given an average length of/distance between cars being so many yards/feet, how many cars are there in a two mile traffic jam?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com