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by ars 3852 days ago
> however unfortunate for the scientific community at large

Why is it unfortunate? What difference does it make? The units are completely unimportant. Units are a completely arbitrary thing, it's quite irrelevant what you use as long as you know what you are using.

You will never find a real scientist complaining about them, you convert to whatever is easiest for your task and move on. The only people who complain about units are those for which the units make no difference - like the person who you replied to. If those units said any other number would it make event the tiniest bit of different to him? No it would not. That picture could say 6km, or 6leagues and it would make zero difference to him.

It's a form of bikeshedding - people won't talk about anything important because that's too complicated. But the units are easy and make you seem like you are "in the know".

But actually it does not do that, all it does is let everyone else know you have nothing more worthwhile to contribute.
3 comments
bootload 3852 days ago
"Why is it unfortunate? What difference does it make? The units are completely unimportant. Units are a completely arbitrary thing, it's quite irrelevant what you use as long as you know what you are using."

In space [0], units matter ~ https://www.google.com/search?q=nasa+technical+problem+units...

[0] And in reporting of news for technical accuracy.

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danielbarla 3852 days ago
Funnily enough, half of my family are agricultural scientists and often lament the difference between how yield experiments are measured in the US are somewhat incompatible with those from Europe (and likely much of the world). To be fair, this is beyond just "units" - in the US, yield is usually measured by volume, while elsewhere by weight. The two are pretty difficult to convert between, as the weight of a bushel is both dependent on what specific produce it is, as well as its water content. This leads to some loss of collaboration between the two camps.
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cmpb 3851 days ago
Note taken. I should clarify that the "however unfortunate" statement wasn't necessarily a personal opinion, but rather a response specifically to the original poster's opinion.

Better-worded, what I meant was 'irrespective of the standards followed by the scientific community'.

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