&gt; however unfortunate for the scientific community at large<p>Why is it unfortunate? What difference does it make? The units are completely unimportant. Units are a completely arbitrary thing, it&#x27;s quite irrelevant what you use as long as you know what you are using.<p>You will never find a real scientist complaining about them, you convert to whatever is easiest for your task and move on. The only people who complain about units are those for which the units make no difference - like the person who you replied to. If those units said any other number would it make event the tiniest bit of different to him? No it would not. That picture could say 6km, or 6leagues and it would make zero difference to him.<p>It&#x27;s a form of bikeshedding - people won&#x27;t talk about anything important because that&#x27;s too complicated. But the units are easy and make you seem like you are &quot;in the know&quot;.<p>But actually it does not do that, all it does is let everyone else know you have nothing more worthwhile to contribute.