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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • Well, not exactly. Those imperial units are all a unique measurement that one would have to learn to use. The SI prefixes meanwhile are simply powers of 10. Deca means 10, hecto means 100, kilo means 1000. Decameter literally means 10 meter. And so people just end up saying that instead, because it’s easier and conventional. But in some situation where you’re frequently dealing with 10s of meters it might be easier to use decameters.

    The system also provides prefixes for extremely large or extremely small units. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone referring to a ronnameter (10^27 meter). But it’s there if you ever need it, because it’s again just a power of 10. While megameter (1000km) is pretty much never used, megahertz is very common. SI simply provides a unified system and we can apply it in whatever way is most practical.