< actually my main gripe with metric is the weights. it feels like the weight of a kilogram should be like. the base. tbh. that should just be a gram. it feels correct. like a meter is a big measurement. the base unit of length is that long.
but the base unit of weight is way smaller. you like dont even use units smaller than the gram that often.
i suppose that would mean like medication milligram measurements would be like. uhh. micrograms– actually that’d be fine. and then nanograms. yeah it’d be fine actually

< so a kilogram, one thousand grams, would be equivalent to one tonne now. that would make sense to me. one thousand is a lot

@Paradox TBF I think it’s coz the gram is just so tiny that they couldn’t measure it in ye olde days, so the kilogram worked better

@yassie_j < OKAY LIKE. THAT MAKES IT WORSE. if the gram was so small they literally couldn’t measure it. make the big one the gram one!! the one they can measure!!!!!!!!!

@Paradox right!!!! Like the metre!

@Paradox technically. Technically. the kilogram IS the base unit. it was easier to make a weight of a kilo than a single gram. they just happen to call it that. I think grams were always meant to be a tiny

@yassie_j < exactly!!!!!!!!!

@Paradox ah this actually has a very simple reason.

the desity of water is exactly 1g/ml (at 20C)
1kg is the weight of 1l of water

this is probably more of a quirk of the order they were defined in than anything

@siblingsofthevoid < ,,,
no that’s. that’s worse. that does not explain it that makes it worse. why wouldn’t they just make the base unit of weight, the gram, be the weight of one liter of water. instead of one thousandth of that

@Paradox now the question is: what came first?

I think we defined the gram and kilogram first, then it was in use and now breaks the pattern.

tbf I do see grams used more often than kilograms in dayly life. Food is usually measured in grams, unless it's more than a kilogram.
technically mililiter is also used more than liter, because integers are easier to use than decimals.

remember that when we use metric, we always use the smallest applicable unit.

these are the kinds of quirks you get used to because at least even through its quirks, its consistent lol

@siblingsofthevoid < i mean. yeah. it’s not like it doesn’t work or anything. it just annoys me. but like. logically we should have defined the gram first. i dont think we defined the kilometer before the meter, or the milliliter before the liter. i’d think you start at the base unit with no prefix.
idk if they defined the gram as this small unit first then they should have defined all the other units after it!! make the liter equivalent to a gram!! you know!! sighs

@Paradox you got me looking into this...
I was wrong in my last assumption.

the gram was actually defined explicity as the weight of 1dm^3 of water at its highest density (4C). So originally it was defined the way you'd expect. 1 gram is the weight of 1L of water at maximum density.

They later made the kilogram the base unit and in about 1960 they defined the gram as 1×10^-3 kg.
So i was partially correct, but I was wrong about my initial assumption. They noticed what you noticed, changed it but couldn't move the units because people had already gotten used to them.