Notes on Measurements and Units

Unit systems, prefixes, and why metric helps

Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin: small changes in Celsius translate to larger changes in Fahrenheit (roughly, changing one degree Celsius changes about two to three degrees Fahrenheit).
Kelvin as an absolute temperature scale; contrast with Celsius and Fahrenheit.
English/US customary units vs metric: a wide variety of units (pounds, ounces, grams, tons, short tons, long tons, troy ounce, grains, etc.) makes conversions cumbersome; metric is argued to be more logical and scalable due to decimal prefixes.
Metric system is built from prefixes that scale units by powers of ten, enabling easy expansion or contraction of units.
Practical issue with non-decimal systems: common household/engineering references (yards, feet, inches, square feet, square yards, pints, quarts, bushels, etc.) are not uniform and complicate quick conversions.

Prefix concept: a prefix (like kilo, milli, centi) multiplies the base unit by a fixed factor (usually 10^n).
Common base units discussed: meter (m), liter (L or dm^3 for volume), gram (g), second (s).
Examples of prefixes and base units:
- Kilounits: $$ ext{kilogram} = 1000 ext{ g},\