Miles in America. But they usually spell it kilometer if it was used for some reason. To me klicks in a non-mil context sounds really weird. That's interesting. How did you come to that conclusion? Do they also use celsius instead of fahrenheit?
They would, yeah. It stands to reason that any new colony influenced by multiple cultures would take the mathematically logical option rather than traditional. They may even use Kelvin. Although environmental factors may skew the values and a new measurement system would be needed, as a ml of water may not equal a gram with slightly different gravitational forces.
I don't have any references to numerical temperature yet, but yes it would include celsius. The reasons are, the US is an outlier when it comes to not fully adopting the metric system and my characters are descended from multiple nationalities; and, metrics are used in science even in the US so they would have been used in the space program that got the people to the planet they are on. Metrics are used in medicine as well, even in the US. When I'm converting celsius in my head sometimes I think of 37 C being normal body temperature and estimate from there.
That's a good point and makes for an interesting problem in such a future world. The US uses measurements that made sense at one time in the past but a newer one was adopted that made more sense. Once you have multiple planets, the metric system could be as archaic as Standard. I hadn't thought of that until now. It could come in handy as a plot device one of these days.
Different planetary systems would most likely measure time differently too. Days, while still existant, would unlikely be 24 hours as such, and weeks and months would probably be different in concept too. I'm (supposed to be) developing a star system for my space-opera novels. The cultures on them aren't evolved from Earth at all, so their ways of dealing with time are different to ours. Not least is the issue that they inhabit 'moons' around a 'world' which orbits a star, rather than just worlds around a star, so things like years and months take on a whole new flavour, let alone differences in things like hours, minutes and seconds. Thinking of metric over the U.K. or U.S. Imperials, the only issue I have with kilometres is we don't mark kilometres on our road signs in the UK, only miles. If the kilometres were to be added, say in brackets after the miles, then I could learn the relative differences and go fully metric (which I find to be the easier system to understand). Bearing in mind that our fuel at the pump in the UK is measured in litres, and car fuel figures are quoted in litres per 100km, it would make a bit of sense to have the km on road signs here in some form.
Might there be pockets of cultural anachronism. Old timie Yanks who begrudge the imposition of the new system, defiantly speaking in inches and yards, goading you to say some'n. Come on, say it! LOL
And here in Puerto Rico it's the other way 'round. Signs indicating distance to next city or exit are in kilometers, but speed limits are MPH. Gasoline is sold by the liter, but milk by the gallon. Tempurature is either F or C depending on which news channel you watch.
>a ml of water may not equal a gram with slightly different gravitational forces Yes it would. A gram is a unit of mass, not a unit of weight, so it does not depend on gravity. US/English customary units developed as weights, and technical discussions that refer to them make a distinction between a pound-mass and a pound-force, which may be translated by gravity. Metric units define grams for mass and derive newtons for weight.
At the guts of it, yeah, but we don't really use it like that in day to day life because mass and weight are indestinguishable to the everyday user on earth. On a new planet the effect would be different so people's values placed on the measurement unit for day to day use is thrown out. So you could adjust the measurement tools, or you could adjust the measurement unit. I guess that's up to the creator.
However, a ml of water may not be a gram of water if the temperature is not 4 Celsius, or under a substantially higher gravitational field (compression in the latter case)
Glad to see the 'clicks' vs. 'klicks' thing brought up. I use 'klicks' in my books because they're spy thrillers and my MC was former military and teams up with a lot of military characters. I chose 'klicks' over 'clicks' because kilometer begins with a 'K'. Just seems to make more sense.
