Why is metric system used backward in time?

Question

For example - decade, century, millennium - decimeter, centimeter, millimeter - going in opposites in "quantity"!

Answer 1

dec, cent, mil are all derived from Latin meaning 10, 100 and 1000 respectively. Adding the "a" as in deca means "times 10" (similarly for centa and milla) whereas adding an "i" as in deci means "divided by 10" (similarly for centi and milli). Over time, the "a" has been dropped from Century and Millenium, however the "i" has been retained.

Answer 2

You got it wrong. Deca means 10. Deci means 1/10. Mille means thousand and milli means 1/1000 (and cent means 100 while centi means 1/100). They are not the same prefixes. So a millimillenium is 1/1000 of 1000 years. 1 year... Read the prefixes properly. They all make sense if you know what they mean. Kilo (greek) also means a thousand and is most commonly used. Kilogram, kilometer, kilolightyear etc. Kiloyear... not so much. The latin word millenium is prefered.

Answer 3

The simple answer is the words "Decade", "century", and "millennium" are not metric units. They're just words that came down to us from Latin and Greek, and existed long before the metric system was invented.

As for the derivation of the metric prefixes, they come from "decim", "centum", and "mille", the Latin words for 10, 100, and 1000, respectively, and from "deka", "hekaton", and "khilioi", the Greek words from those same numbers.

(So you could think of all metric units as being "backward" relative to Latin numbers, and "forward" relative to Greek numbers.)

Answer 4

???
You seem not to know, recognize, or understand the difference between:
deca and deci
centa and centi
mille and milli
There's a reason that they're spelled the way that they are, and it's not just about typos. Go take a year of Latin and it will all become clear to you ☺

Doug

Answer 5

lol it's a huge conspiracy. everyone who uses the metric system is in on the time travel secret. too bad you don't use it.

Answer 6

How is that any less logical than ten/tenth, hundred/hundredth, million/millionth, etc?

Answer 7

It is the same time what ever label you use. Don't freak about labels.