why don't people say mega meters - eviltoast

How come people say 5,000 km and not 5 Mm?
why not just say millions of meters or Mega meters?

  • Turun@feddit.de
    5·
    8 months ago

    To be fair, mass is weird because the base unit is kg (yes, the name includes a prefactor). I have no idea how they managed to fuck it up that badly.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      Apparently they were going to use gram for what we now call kg, but decided to make it kg. I expect it’s because we used grams so much for food.