The Nightmare of Astronomical Measurement Systems

Unexpected or not, but in the field of astronomy and astrophysics there is a very serious technical problem. It turns out that there is no logical consistency in the heterogeneous metric system that is used to quantify astronomical objects and phenomena. "Many of the units that use astronomers in practice are an unfortunate mix of the Imperial metric system, the modern metric system and some other, actually completely redundant units from other systems or hybrid derivatives of the leading two," explains Keith Atkin of Sheffield University.

"Professional astronomers suffer greatly from this mess in the systems. In their community, the standard units of measurement of the astronomical unit, the light year, and the parse are automatically accepted as useful and adequate. But the truth is that these units are formulated in a heavy and superfluous way, and in reality they fail to perform the functions with the ease and simplicity that is needed in astronomy, "he adds. Serious intellectual resources go only to convert data obtained in one system to data in another metric system, and that energy can be used for much more useful and creative things, Atkins says.