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[–] 6 points 6 days ago (1 child)

I think the fact that you intuitively know which unit should come next is kinda the point though. What's after a mile? An armpit? How many miles to pit? Is that the same for a nautical pit? Are satellite orbits measured in regular pits or nautical pits?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    that's the thing with customary units, you generally don't change them. If something gets unruly in a unit, you just make a new one and any conversion factor is just trivia at that point.

    Astronomy did it several times with AU, light-years, and parsecs. It doesn't really matter how many meters any of those are.

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