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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Cuz the gram came before the SI system and the kilogram is a much more useable unit. The original m-g-s are based on physical things, like m being a subdivision of the length from the North Pole to the Equator going through Paris, and s being related to the time of a pendulum with certain length swinging or smth
A gram is the weight of 1 mL of water, roughly.
I remember in some old astronomy textbooks they used units based on CGS (cm-g-s) as opposed to MKS (m-kg-s). It was pretty weird, as they had terms to go with that system like dynes instead of newtons for force. But at least it wasn't imperial.
Which is 1 cm³ of water if we want to stay in SI. And if that's the basis for it, then why not make a gram = the weight of 1 dm³ of water and then we wouldn't need a prefix for weights in the stuff-we-usually-carry-around range. It still doesn't make sense to me to have a prefixed unit being the base unit.
A cubic meter of water should have been a liter and weighed a gram.
It's called history, blame the French
I always do.