Centi is familiar to everyone from centi-meter, I have deci in deci-Bel for my optical signals at work, and I know hecto is used for hecto-Pascal which replaced the milli-bar. But I can’t think of one for deka, can anyone give an example of a unit where deka is used often?
Dekagram of cocaine
Decimeter is used often enough.
All of these can be used with any measure, and that’s the point.
It’s pretty much the least used SI prefix. Apparently used somewhat frequently in central Europe for “decagrams” (10s of grams)
Interesting, thanks. It’s not familiar to me in my South-Western corner of central Europe. I’ll have to ask my Czech friend if it’s familiar to him.
Am from Hungary, can confirm, all recipes say decagram here.
It also makes sense in a way, you usually don’t eat either kilograms or grams of anything really.
Like you go to the butcher and you won’t ask for 213 grams of meat, or 5 kilos, you ask for 15 decagrams.
Thank you for the datapoint! Exactly like my Czech friend said as well.
It makes a lot of sense to me, that you would put a floor on the precision like that.
We often have the question at the counter, like “It’s a few grams over, is that still okay, or should I take some off?”.
Yeah, us too, just in good Hungarian fashion, that whole sentence is one word.
As a member of c/sciencememes, you have my sword! (Or, at least my upvote!)
Such a satisfying system
We’re not asleep we’re just depressed!
That’s because of sleep deprivation!
repress your depression!
Deka and Hecto are the metric system’s unloved children
In Hungary “dekagram” is the default unit when buying food from actual humans at a deli counter or market. Asking for 30 deka of cheese sounds like a more human-scale number than asking for 300 grams.
Though it’s interesting that hecto would be even better for this, as we always use deka in 10s (or at least 5s), so we could just ask for 3 hectograms of cheese for an even more human-scale number :)
That’s pretty cool. Makes me think about speaking in ounces locally (NL). “3 ounce of cheese please” will get you 300g. They could ask if they cut it too fat: “mag het een onsje meer zijn?”/“Is it ok if it’s a small ounce more?”
Hecto used to be popular in sweden until like 2000 or so, when it came to food. Especially candy and charcuterie were priced and ordered in “hekto” (the “gram” dropped in speech).
Hecto is very used in Italy with food “I’d like 3 hectos of ham, sir”
Deka is too small to be useful tbh, maybe it’s used with medicines or drugs?
How about a metric ton of tiddies
A full megagram?.
A full mammogram
I have to say, “da” is a bad prefix. Good thing nobody uses it.
Not so sure about that, buddy…
If faced with the choice of giving up the metric system forever or giving up tiddies forever, I know which one I’d choose. I can get used to a new system of measurements, but without tiddies to measure, what’s even the point?
Missed some fun ones
- quetta Q 10^30 nonillion
- ronna R 10^27 octillion
- yotta Y 10^24 septillion
- zetta Z 10^21 sextillion.
Also: —
• zepto (symbol z): 10⁻²¹ (one sextillionth)
• yocto (symbol y): 10⁻²⁴ (one septillionth)
• ronto (symbol r): 10⁻²⁷ (one octillionth)
• quecto (symbol q): 10⁻³⁰ (one nonillionth)
Look at that hourglass figure
Now do the same with US customary units. Let’s see what their hourglass looks like 🫠
O O
It’s the negative space between two soapy titties.
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HEY YOU CAN’T DO THAT
Majestic
I’m an American, WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER!?
A kilometer is
0.000,000,000,000,001 Exameters
0.000,000,000,001 Petameters
0.000,000,001 Terameters
0.000,001 Gigameters
0.001 Megameters
1 Kilometer
10 Hectometer
100 Dekameter
1,000 Meter
10,000 Decimeter
100,000 Centimeter
1,000,000 Millimeter
1,000,000,000 Micrometer
1,000,000,000,000 Nanometer
1,000,000,000,000 Picometer
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Femtometer
or
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 AttometerYou’re talking to an American. They use anything but a logical system. To explain to them what a kilometer is, you need to put yourself in their position and go from that. Let me help:
A kilometer is:
- ~167 Ford F-150’s,
- ~1,150 dishwashers,
- ~5,556 bibles,
- ~5,263 bananas,
- ~1,250 AR-15’s,
- ~0.62 miles,
- ~3,281 feet,
- ~39,370 inches,
- etc.
To make sense to an American, you need to not make any sense. This includes swapping the period and comma around in numbers, but you already did that.
I would call it an upvote, but I will give you +1 Eagle Scream for the accuracy of your AR-15 unit measurement.
Same accuracy as seen during school shootings, am I right?
(you forgot 3 zeroes in Picometer)
thank you for pointing it out :-)
Thanks man, that really cleared it up. I understand now.
I’m wide awake but here’s an upvote.
Hey hey, US customary units are metric:
The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before.
They just use weird provincial conversion factors, that’s all.
They could be more metric. Just imagine this wonderful reality:
- 1 inch = 2,5cm
- -> 1 hand = 10cm
- 1 foot = 30cm
- 1 yard = 1 m (=3ft+1hd)
- 1 pound = 500g = ½kg
- 1 thou = 25μm
- 1 yard = 1 m (=3ft+1hd)
Oh yeah, that’ll be fine, I’m sure it will make everything simpler:
1km = 1000yd + 1000hd = 1111yd + 1hdWhat could possibly go wrong.
1 slug = ... ?Funny thing is here in the Netherlands some people use pounds and ounces ( pond and ons in Dutch ) when they buy meat at the butcher. 1 pond = 500 gram, 1 ons = 100 gram
lmaooooooo
Deka and Hecto really didnt stand a chance
I mean, milk, beer and wine are measured in hectolitres. Oh, and oil for heating, I believe.
Is it not centa? Always thought it was like deci and deca.
