Hacker News Reader

If I see "4Mg" in print, it's more likely that someone erroneously capitalized the 'm' in "4 milligrams", rather than sincerely using "megagram" as a unit.

It's just not done. Maybe that's weird, or inconsistent, or whatever. But it is that way.

View on HN

There is the option of just writing it out “4 megagrams”

During my undergrad we had a physics professor who would only use si units. 3,000 km became 3 megameters. A billion dollars were a gigadollar. To this day I don't know how I feel about it.

The sound of "gigadollar" really tickles my fancy. Is a penny one centidollar or ten millidollars?

A cent is already a centi dollar.

I guess, but that's longer than “4,000kg” and unusual to boot. Anyone reading it is going to convert it in their head to 4,000kg anyway. Four million grams is not something relatable. Hard to picture the weight of millions slips of paper vs. a few thousand large water bottles. Or roughly two sedans.

The megagram is on the same list as the dekaliter and the hectowatt. They don't exist :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com