2003-03-17 One of the reasons that metric prefixes are spaced a 1000 apart, except for the core prefixes, is that people are suppose to only capable of visualising quantities between 1 and 1000.
John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert T. Wyatt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2003-03-17 11:28 Subject: [USMA:25186] Re: 1000 kx v. 1 000 000 x > >What I mean is that 1000 kg and 1 000 000 g depict the *exact same > >quantity*!!! > > Yes, they indicate the same amount of stuff, but visualization cannot > be done with one million units. However, one can imagine 10x10x10 > units. > > Remember that it was J.Paul Getty who said,"If you can count all your > money, you don't have a billion dollars." > > Carl Sagan made a living helping people visualize large quantities > precisely because people generally can't. > > The whole argument is rhetorical, academic, and parochial anyway, > because, as you say, there is no real distinction between them. >
