Why kms?

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Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Location
Inside my skull
There is no difference in the gear range, just in the way it is expressed. Similar to the UK practice of expressing vehicle fuel consumption in miles per gallon compared to the continental practice of expressing it in litres per 100 kilometres, the actual consumption is not affected.

Suggest you check your post again , as to why I asked that question 😂
 

pjd57

Veteran
Location
Glasgow
When I get to about 80ish, I might go metric and change my birthday miles ride to km.
I've already chosen this year's 64 mile route. All I need now is some reasonable weather for the start of March
 
We have the Babylonians and their base 60 system to thank for that. But we express it in base 10,

There are those who think we'd be better off switching to base 12 numbering http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/ Now that would be fun!

And we have the Italians (Leonardo de Pisa) <- {Indians,Muslims} to thank for the base 10 decimal notation, otherwise we'd all still be using Roman numerals.

Going to base 12 would also fit with going back to inches, shillings, ...
 
But to be fair to Roman numberals they are base 10 but they are a bit rubbish, as they lack zero.
It could equally be argued that they're base 5 but agreed about the lack of zero and the need for an ever increasing number of letters as the numbers grow. The real problem was multiplying and dividing with them. Even so it took a long time for decimal-place value to take over in Europe.

From memory, the Babylonian numbers were similar, going up to 12 then going up to 60 as 5*12. However my cuneiform isn't what it used to be.
 

figbat

Slippery scientist
I rode 50,000,000,000µm this afternoon:tongue:

PS: aren't they suffixes
No, definitely a prefix... although I would have gone for “suffices”.
 

Mark pallister

Senior Member
Because imperial measurements are a really poor way of measuring distance. Decimalisation is so much clearer and easier to break down.

We've pretty much done away with feet and inches in manufacturing in favour of millimetres and the only reasons people persist with miles is because of history and the fact it's still how our speed limits and road signs are shown.
And it’s what’s shown on your car speedometer
 

RichardB

Slightly retro
Location
West Wales
Just shows how foresighed Leonardo de Pisa was when he described the Fibonacci sequence 800 years ago. The next/previous number is your km/mile equivalent, so
5 - 8 - 13 - 21 - 34 - 55 - 89 ...

I had noticed this, too. It's not exact, but near enough for approximation purposes. I've wondered for a long time if this is just a coincidence, or if there is a deeper connection between the two. Probably coincidence. Incidentally, there is a book called 'Nature's Numbers' by Ian Stewart which has a fascinating chapter on the Fibonacci sequence, relating it to the Golden Mean/Golden Section, the design of flower heads, snail shells and all sorts. Out of print now, but worth tracking down a copy if this kind of thing floats your boat.

Being brought up on Imperial units (ho ho), my mental arithmetic is quite good, so for miles/km I just multiply or divide by 1.6. Easy and near enough for most purposes.
 
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