I have a chip on my shoulder about the metric system as it appears in sci-fi writing.
It drives me nuts that in books like The Expanse (and I think the Bobiverse and Andy Wier’s works) that the writer will call distances in “thousands/millions of kilometers”.
Really feels more reasonable to just go full send and call them megameters and gigameters, but maybe that’s just my American non-metric mind trying to force full use of a system in a way those born to it don’t actually do.
I have a chip on my shoulder about the metric system as it appears in sci-fi writing.
It drives me nuts that in books like The Expanse (and I think the Bobiverse and Andy Wier’s works) that the writer will call distances in “thousands/millions of kilometers”.
Really feels more reasonable to just go full send and call them megameters and gigameters, but maybe that’s just my American non-metric mind trying to force full use of a system in a way those born to it don’t actually do.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Megameters just is fun to say, we could make it a thing, if enough use it it becomes proper.
I’m onboard. Let’s get rid of the tonne also. Megagram sounds way cooler.
It’s certainly a good observation. I would agree that a more practical way of measuring the vast distances is to up the scale. Giga, Terra, whatever.
A kilometer in space is nothing. It must be the equivalent of saying “it’s only a million millimeter drive away”