Amazingawesomator t1_j20s0gx wrote on December 28, 2022 at 8:50 PM

Reply to comment by TheLuminary in ELI5: If astronomers use "light-years" for interstellar distances, why do we use AU for interplanetary distances instead of "light-minutes"? by concorde77

You say this, but many people don't know the difference between MiB and MB, GiB and GB, etc.

Kethraes t1_j20xc7a wrote on December 28, 2022 at 9:25 PM

Easy.

MiB is Men in Black, MB is Manitoba.

GiB is when you want someone to give you something, and GB is Grand Britain.

TheLuminary t1_j20tdtp wrote on December 28, 2022 at 8:59 PM

I think that the practical use for the knowledge of the difference between a MiB and a MB, is much more limited than the knowledge of the difference between a M and a G.

Thus, even if they don't understand that MiB is 2^20 and that MB is 10^6, they will understand that Gx is near enough 3 orders of magnitude larger than Mx. Which in the case of stellar distances, is good enough, IMHO anyways.