this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
464 points (97.7% liked)

Science Memes

10819 readers
2662 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21049862

The only numbers I will ever spell are one and zero, and only when using them as a pronoun, or for emphasis, respectively.

Is there ever a reason to not to use symbols when dealing with numbers? Why would "fourteen whatevers" ever be preferable to "14 whatevers". It's just so much easier to read numbers as symbols, not spelled out.

(Caveat, not including multipliers, like "273 billion").

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Absolutely, mm > cm all the way. Other than you putting s at the end of mm, we don't take the Lord's (metric) name in vain around here.

I do feel kind of sorry for East Asia though, since their languages seperate at intervals of 10⁴, rather than 10³. The giga and mega prefixes just make no sense there. 1 GW = 10,0000,0000 W and 1 MW = 100,0000.

Language strikes again

Not sure, but perhaps they would prefer a prefix of 10^-4^ rather than mm (10^-3^).

[–] Classy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wtf I've never heard of this, what a cursed way to notate large numbers

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

It's not cursed, it's just a different way of grouping. Nothing about grouping in multiples of 10³ is a more natural grouping, were just more used to it.

And I'm pointing out how metric prefixes are actually euro-centric, and that's annoying for them. But there's nothing fundamentally worse about breaking digits in groups of 4, rather than 3

1,000,000,000,000 = 1,0000,0000,0000 (10^12^) [Meme of black and white muscular arms embracing.]

Look up the indian system, now that's actually cursed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system