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>I don't have a concrete proof, just a gut feeling, but I think that this kind of comparisons are much more common in texts written by Americans and for Americans than in any other culture, that's why:

Those filthy new worlders and their propensity to make technical writing parsable by the unwashed masses. If the masses want to understand science they should just go to Oxford or whatever.

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Just an observation, I didn't mean to say that it is bad. It's a bit grating, if you are not used to it, but there are no real harm to it, when an actual number is just one Wikipedia search or one Google search or, sigh, one chatbot prompt away.

There is much to be said about the irony in said New Worlders refusing to get with the programme, and instead obstinately clinging to an ancient, Babylonian-Roman-Anglo-Saxon-Viking hodge-podge of units instead of something modern and universal.

> make technical writing parsable by the unwashed masses

> If the masses want to understand science they should just go to Oxford

This is a bad strawman. I learnt scientific notation in secondary school. I expect most educated people to understand what is meant by '1.5 × 10^8 km' in an instant. If they don't, then honestly, skill issue, and it is a big indictment of their parent country's education system.

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