My 8-year-old niece taught me the Reddit way to remember liquid measurements.
Posted Apr 13, 2011, 12:02 AM UTC
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eh, i'm fine with our temperature system. it's true that it seems more arbitrary than celsius, but the advantage is that it expands the range of range of temperatures that we regularly experience in our everyday lives. the fact that 0-100 F are all relatively common in the weather means that we have more granularity when we're trying to describe the weather, which i think is a good thing! plus, moving up/down 10 degrees at a time (which is very easy to follow) does pretty well at describing how the temperature feels, i think: 40 is cold, 50 is chilly, 60 is cool, 70 is warm, 80 is hot, etc...
21
For someone who is used to Celsius the idea that water can be frozen when the temperature is above zero is just wrong.
74
Celsius is just as arbitrary.
Kelvin should be the only acceptable scale of temperature...
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You only say that because it's a system you're used to. I can just as easily say 5 is cold, 10 is chilly and 15 is cool, ect... I can say C has more "granularity" because it's a smaller unit. And obviously I can say that I know below 0 means snow and ice while above 0 means no snow and ice.
Really, they're nearly the same system in isolation.
26
I can say C has more "granularity" because it's a smaller unit.
That's not really how granularity works.
28
10 is chilly... England must have ruined me, that's like a blazing firestorm as far as I'm concerned.
5
Not sure why, but I find it odd that when I go to adjust a digital thermostat in Celsius, I have units broken down by the half: 13, 13.5, 14, 14.5, etc. But with Fahrenheit you have whole unit adjustments.
1
Just admit it, man.
-2
we have more granularity when we're trying to describe the weather
So in your everyday life you need to describe temperate to a greater degree of accuracy than can be provided within a whole number in the Celsius system?
And not "scientific" enough where you could reasonably employ a decimal place?
8
i'm not trying to argue that it's more accurate or more suitable for scientific purposes. you're right that whole numbers are just as accurate for normal use, and that decimals are reasonable if you need a high degree of accuracy. the point i'm trying to make, instead, is that--especially for those who are used to it--the fact that moving up and down 10 degrees at a time is convenient and easy to remember, since it feels like there's a difference between each set of ten (which, of course, is an easy number to deal with).
i'm not advocating the spread of fahrenheit everywhere, or claiming that it's better than celsius. i have no doubt in my mind that, had i grown up elsewhere, i'd feel perfectly comfortable with celsius. the only point i'm trying to make is that fahrenheit has some saving graces, the biggest of which is that it describes the range of temperatures (that we regularly deal with) in a fairly nice way.
2
I'm stuck thinking in Fahrenheit too, but I kind of like the idea of Celsius's larger degrees - lets you estimate with more chance of being right - and in practice everyone rounds to 5 degree F increments anyway.
4
but we do say (if we want to be specific) +20.5°C
1
I think using Celsius give better granularity since people using it are used to decimal fractions. You can say 21.5°C if you need to be that accurate, and it would make perfect sense. For Fahrenheit you can't have anything smaller until someone invents a name for 1/3 or 1/12 of it.
1
Because it's hard to say temperatures like 98.6°F???
1
Meh, it could be any set of numbers really. Is 10 degrees twice as hot as 5 degrees? Numbers aren't important for temperature, but I agree that the metric system makes more sense.
5
No, it actually isn't. 10°F is only about 1.01 times as hot as 5°F
Celsius does this too, only in Kelvin does twice the heat correspond to twice the number, because only 0 K represents no heat. 0°C and 0°F both correspond to non-zero amounts of heat.
I know this probably isn't what you meant, but this is actually why Kelvin is so prevalent in chemistry and physics.
15
So should we create a movement for worldwide conversion to Kelvin? It might be better to have a scale that is absolute.
9
But the measurement would be significantly different if you were to try to measure perceived heat instead of actual heat.
2
So 10c isn't half as warm as 20c?
2
Alright, so 2K is twice as hot as 1K and 3K is 50% hotter than 2K. How much hotter is then 1K than 0K?
You say Celsius doesn't scale relatively, just like Fahrenheit. Does that then mean that high temperatures in Celsius and Kelvin are not comparable through a 273.15 offset?
2
Is this why, when it's really cold out, it doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference if it's 15 degrees or 0 (F)?
1
I didn't say it was twice as hot.
Numbers aren't important for temperature
0
Obviously, the metric system is far more extensive, but I've always thought it would be logical if freeing point was zero. That and the fact that we seem to be the one of the only countries NOT using Celsius.
9
Water freezes at around -20 degrees C.
Freezing at temperatures higher than that is a result of impurities. Only.
Try freezing some distilled water in as smooth a vessel as is possible to create to confirm. (I performed this in high school many years ago).
Water can become supercooled, at temperatures far below zero. As soon as you agitate it, or poke something into it, it solidifies in seconds.
-20
Are you talking about the left side or the right side?
1
There is one argument for the old system in that 12 factors better than 10. So if you had 12 chickens for sale and four customers, then can each have 3 chickens. Doesn't work out so well for the chickens if there's 10 of them.
That's likely how the old system developed, but it's really not much of an advantage in modern times.
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But what if there are 5 people? 10 would work better than 12 there...
edit: Upon further thought, I get it. 12 is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. 10 is only evenly divisible by 1, 2, 5, 10. So you get 2 more factors at a significant cost to mental math everywhere.
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It's an example of how, in earlier times, it may have been considered easier to work with groups of 12 instead of 10.
I'm not arguing in favour of base 12, I'm just saying there are some advantages to it.
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Why would base 𝒳 make more sense than base 10? Of course, now that we have the decimal system, it would be quite hard to switch to duodecimal. That is an external reason, though, and has nothing to do with why base 𝒳 is better than base 10. I think that base 12 would be very cumbersome, as 7 is not a commonly used divisor.
(This comment uses base 10 instead of the more common base 𝒳.)
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That's the worst reasoning I've heard. I could come up with countless scenarios where metric would win over imperial using this logic.
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I've always wondered whether our ease to use base 10 (which, practically, is no different from base 3 or base 16), stems from the fact that we have 10 fingers and learn from the youngest age to count using our fingers...
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'Cause Americans are stubborn and waiting for everyone to adopt their antiquated form.
(They'll be on the Euro before that happens...)
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Well, most of Europe would be out of the Euro by then, so it comes out even in the end.
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You can use metric if you want. No one is stopping you.
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Boo fucking hoo. You said you wanted to use metric. Now you want to tell other people to use metric. These are two different things.
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My country uses both metric and american style system. We used feet, pounds, km, kg, oz, liters, but not yards, miles, or quarts.
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It does if you're a programmer. (powers of 2)
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We will probably never use metric so quit complaining!
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The difference between an American and everyone else is that while everyone else can read metric we can read imperial measurements AND metric. We're bi-lingual in measurements. Personally, I can quickly do conversions between the most common units (metric to standard) and I know some of the more obscure imperial measurements.
The other thing about imperial measurements that makes them useful is that they are meaningful. For instance, when I say a barrel of oil, you know roughly how much oil that is and how big it is. If I say 50 deciliters of oil... derp. How much is that? Sure, I can say oh it's 5 liters and a liter is roughly this big... But a barrel, is a barrel and that's what it comes in.... A barrel. That said barrels for different things contain a different number of gallons. Crude oil is 42 gallons, beer is sold in 31 gallon barrels (though most distributors have kegs or "half barrels" or half-kegs or "quarter barrels" 15.5 and 7.75 gallons respectively.
A foot is about the length of an average mans foot. An inch is about the width of a mans thumb below the nail. Before standardized measure, these all made sense, and I'd argue they still do. They are close measurements to something you recognize on your person. Not everyone carries a certified scale and ruler around.
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50 deciliters of oil is naturally 50 deciliters of oil. Simple. Of course you can say half a barrel. I would say half a barrel is 100 litres if the barrel size is 200 litres
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Upvote for spelling litres correctly.
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But he spelt "decilitres" wrong twice.
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(metric to standard)
Please. Metric is standard. It's so standard that your measurements are defined in the corresponding SI units.
The other thing about imperial measurements that makes them useful is that they are meaningful. For instance, when I say a barrel of oil, you know roughly how much oil that is and how big it is. […] That said barrels for different things contain a different number of gallons.
This is a great example, thankyouverymuch. A [barrel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_(unit\)) of oil has more volume (~159l) than a standard fluid barrel (119l). That is, a US fluid barrel, a UK fluid barrel (164l) would be larger than an oil barrel. If what you put into the barrel is dry, it would be smaller yet (115.6l). But as you kindly pointed out, it depends on what goes into it. The unit barrel for sugar (142l) is much larger than the one for cranberries (95.5l). It's amazing how you guys came up with different units that go by the same name but depend on what goes into it. I understand beer (117l), but cranberries? Hell, for some of the stuff a "barrel" magically turns from a unit for volume into one for mass! The fuck! And aren't you glad I put the SI measurement in there so that you can compare how they actually relate to each other?
If I say 50 deciliters of oil... derp. How much is that? Sure, I can say oh it's 5 liters and a liter is roughly this big...
No, not just roughly. That's the size of five milk cartons standing next to each other. It would fill (exactly) ten beer bottles, 15 if you take the small ones. Actually, it doesn't matter what the bottles are for. I don't even have to know we're talking about oil. It's ten by ten centimeters, half a meter high.
Works for large amounts, too. Take 100 barrels of beer, for example. That's 117,000l, or 117m^3 which I don't need a calculator for to tell you would fill a pool that covers an area of five by ten meters up to about half a meter over my head. And those are your beer barrels, with a hundred of our beer barrels I could tell you precisely how high it would go. I could do all that without even knowing that there's beer in those barrels, but of course I would just naturally assume that this is about beer anyway.
An inch is about the width of a mans thumb below the nail. […] Not everyone carries a certified scale and ruler around.
Not everybody has a standardized thumb, either. If you want rough estimates, no problem. Ten centimeters? That's about four times the width of a mans thumb below the nail. 30cm? About the length of an average mans foot.
Just kidding. You get used to estimating any kind of unit if you use it in everyday life, you'll find points of reference if you need them. Ten centimeters? About the width of the palm of my hand. Incidentally, I had to measure that, because I had never felt I needed such a reference before. I had no ruler near by, but when I tried to find something about 10cm wide on my body, I thought the palm of my hand looked about right. So I compared to a sheet of A4 paper that was next to me because I know it's height is three millimeters less than 30cm. You just develop a mental image of units and come up with your own points of reference. Don't tell me that when you estimate the size of a pool, you'll actually put one foot in front of another as you measure its length and width. If you actually do that, I'll let you dive into it for measuring its depth, take your count, do simple math and multiply by 30cm, and then tell you how many liters of an unspecified liquid it would take to fill it.
Now I wrote all this and almost forgot to make fun of how you measure sizes of hex cap bolts in fractions of inches. Over here, if the 14mm wrench is a bit too large, I'll ask a friend to hand me the 13mm or the 12mm one, depending how loose it was, and will have fastened it before you will have done the math to tell yours which one you need. Yes, I saw that on YouTube, I'm sure somebody will find the link.
Btw., great choice of timing to post this just about when the US goes to sleep and Europe wakes up…
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You crazy Europeans. What else can you teach us?
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I could offer you lane discipline on motorways, but you'll have to show us how to make proper burgers in return. I'm sure we could work something out.
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Well, if your sockets are in order, it doesn't matter. You put the 1/2 back and grab the 7/16 that is next to it. But you're right, it doesn't get simpler than mm sizing on sockets. Can't argue that one :)
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That's why I used the "ask a friend to hand it to you" scenario. :)
Different workshop scenario, but watch this video.
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I'm not saying the metric system is bad. It's not. But there is no need to measure oil or things in such great volume with liters or mL.
It's great that you know how many liters are in a barrel and what not, but you've proven my point exactly. It makes the liter arbitrary for oil measurements 159 L? Blah.
The barrel was probably standardized based on what a mule could like lift up via a pulley or something. The reason for different volumes? Density. It didn't matter that they were different, you just had to know your trade. I'm an oil importer, or maybe I'm a miller and I sell grain. I just need to know how big to make my barrels and people can expect to get what they always get when they buy that particular good.
Initially their were good reasons for the sizes. And maybe my initial example was good... but just exactly how many tankers do you need to hold 456,345 kilo-liters of oil?
Sure you can do the conversion, but folks in the industry of oil shipping probably know exactly how many barrels their ship holds, but not how many liters.
Again, I'm not saying the metric system isn't a great thing. But what is wrong with two systems? One for average daily measurements and one for scientific ones to make the math easier?
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I'm not saying the metric system is bad. It's not. But there is no need to measure oil or things in such great volume with liters or mL.
Large volumes are usually measured in m^3 or hectoliters. You can even go all km^3 if that's not enough. It's just shifting the decimal point around and changing the prefix. That's one of the advantages of the metric system. A fluid barrel (US, no exceptional content) holds 31.5 gallons. A hectoliter holds 100 liters. You could call a m^3 a kiloliter if you wanted to, everybody would know it's 1000l even though it would probably be the first time they heard that term.
It's great that you know how many liters are in a barrel and what not, but you've proven my point exactly. It makes the liter arbitrary for oil measurements 159 L? Blah.
Yes, I know how many liters are in a barrel, you will have to check what's inside first. I have no idea what you're trying to say with this sentence, btw.
The barrel was probably standardized based on what a mule could like lift up via a pulley or something.
You know the great thing about pulleys? You can build them to be able to pull pretty much any weight.
The reason for different volumes? Density.
Beer has the same density as water. Sugar has a density of 1.6g/cm^3 so that 142l sugar barrel weights 142 * 1.6kg = 227.2kg. That's almost twice as heavy as that normal 119l fluid barrel, if it was filled with water. Or beer. A barrel of wheat flour is defined as 88.9kg, significantly less than the ~135kg a barrel of oil weights.
but just exactly how many tankers do you need to hold 456,345 kilo-liters of oil?
Depends on the tanker. Wikipedia gives the capacity as "up to 550,000 DWT", which is how many (metric) tons a ship can carry. Given the density of oil, which is between 0.8 and 0.9g/cm^3 , you'd just about be able to squeeze that into a very large supertanker -- because your "kiloliter" is a m^3 , and g/cm^3 is exactly the same as tons/m^3 or kg/l. Your 456,345kl therefore weight 456,345/0.85 tons.
Sure you can do the conversion, but folks in the industry of oil shipping probably know exactly how many barrels their ship holds, but not how many liters.
I haven't checked this with a calculator, but I'm pretty confident I got the unit conversions right, so my estimate should come pretty close.
Again, I'm not saying the metric system isn't a great thing. But what is wrong with two systems? One for average daily measurements and one for scientific ones to make the math easier?
Companies that produce hex cap screws, for example, have to produce for two markets. But what would be more of a concern for a consumer, apart from the resulting higher prices, is exactly the math and having to know how to convert between those units.
Incidentally, last night in the kitchen we had to measure water for cooking. We just put a glass on a scale, hit tare, and read the grams it showed as milliliters. Try that with an lbs scale when you need (fluid) ounces. Or cups, or whatever it is you use for cooking.
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A foot is about the length of an average mans foot. An inch is about the width of a mans thumb below the nail.
Are you a giant? I'd say their 10-20% too big.
BTW, I don't see any difficulty having an idea of metric units. It's like gallons, you know what they are because your bottles comes in this unit. I know what 50 dL is, it's 5 times the bottle of orange juice in my fridge, or 10 glasses of beer.
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Slight correction, I think it actually came from the length of a mans foot in a boot.
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There is no reason to be bi-lingual when there is finally only one 'language'.
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Well that's a bit of a generalisation..
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I think that's a pretty unrealistic generalisation. I'm willing to bet that the reason you know both measurements is because you're reasonably technically minded. I grew up with the metric system yet I have a pretty good understanding of imperial units except where it comes to things like volumes where you have too many different things for me to actually care about.
I've been to the USA quite a few times and I was forever talking to people and mentioning things in kilometres and degrees celsius and then having to convert it for them because they don't have any intuition for what those measurements mean.
Also you go out and take a few random measurements of men's feet, then report back with the proportion that are actually over 0.3 metres.
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Maybe that's true. But being technically minded (as I in fact am) I like buying my milk by the gallon, my beer by the pint, and soda in 2 liter bottles.
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Tell me, about how big is a gallon? You keep using that word, but it means different things in different places; one litre is always one litre.
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Unless you lived in France in 1795 when it was 1.000974 of todays litre. Or in 1901 when they redefined it again.
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Just as an FYI, us Americans don't use Imperial measurements. Imperial gallons/pints/quarts are different sizes than US standard(customary) gallons/pints/quarts. I think for distance we're the same though.
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US "Standards": The biggest joke on the planet.
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Bigger joke: they're often referred to as "Metric" and "Standard" measurements...
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Here (UK) they're referred to as "Metric" and "Imperial".
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"Rebel" and "Imperial"
FTFY
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Wasn't it the rebels who overthrew the French royalty who introduced the metric system? So yes, Rebel and Imperial.
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Here in the UK things are seemingly measured arbitrarily in metric or imperial. Speed limits in miles, weight in stone, height in cm, stuff in supermarkets in ml, petrol in litres...
You get used to it, but it's a bit odd.
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Yeah but the important things are metric. No British company would specify the impulse of their thrusters in pound-force seconds...
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Nope, most people measure height in feet and inches. It's basically metric for anything scientific or saleable (food, petrol etc) and imperial for people's general day-to-day usage.
Having said that, a lot of food is still sold in imperial weights like pints of milk, pounds of sausages. They just put metric weights on the packets (568ml, 454g).
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Ireland switched over all of its road signs to km a few years ago. Took a lot of effort as all car speedometers produced over about ten years had to have both values in anticipation.
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Have to be careful too, an Imperial Pint is more than a US Pint.
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That's good as US "Standard" and "Imperial" are different, especially for volumes.
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Here (World)
FTFY
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Upboat for jew.
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This always infuriates me when this overly recurrent topic arises.
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TIL that the word 'Martian' derives from 'Mars'
Yes, I'm that dumb.
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Don't feel bad, I just realized a quart is a "quart"er gallon.
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TIL
....
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A Quarter is... a quarter of a dollar!
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I've heard of worse. I was in a history class one time and someone asked where the word "Christian" derived from.
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Just out of curiosity, what did you think "Martian" meant?
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Alien..
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Don't feel bad, I know people who think that there are seasons because "That's how God made it"....
Next you're going to tell me you weren't aware of the 23° tilt in the Earth...
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Aha! I did know that!
And being an Australian it explains why my blood is constantly pooled in my head.
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But its pooling is biased about 23 degrees to one side.
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Pfft, we're at 0º it's the rest of the solar system that's tilted
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Is our orbit tilted with the rest of the Solar System?
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I've never understand how this happened or why it wasn't caught. Just like any programming, systems like this always go through rigorous testing and simulation to ensure the code is working properly. Why didn't it burn up in the atmosphere during simulation?
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Shit, I'm 22 and I don't even know the imperial system for volume. You can ask me how many quarts are in a gallon and I'll have no fucking clue. But, if you ask me how many ml are in a liter you can bet your ass I'll tell you 1000 in a split second!
I'm American... lived here my whole life and my school system never taught us imperial volumes... just metric. The same goes for length and weight... all metric. I live in some sort of anomaly apparently because I'm completely backwards on this compared to everyone else I meet. This was in a public school system... However we were taught Fahrenheit at least!
I've tried to take some time and learn imperial in my down time in college but its so awkward that I always end up forgetting. 3 feet in a yard but 12 inches in a foot?? wtf. Why is it so inconsistent, nothing about it makes sense.
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I feel like the fact that it's called a quart would make the ratio fairly obvious.
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Ah, so it's a quarter of a firkin. So that would be 2 gallons and 2 pints or 18 pints? Is that right?
Just one question: is that an imperial gallon, a US liquid gallon or a US dry gallon?
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What the fuck is a firkin?
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Roughly 40.9 litres.
A firkin is also nine gallons, half a kilderkin, quarter of a barrel, a sixth of a hogshead, a twelfth of a butt and a twenty fourth of a tun.
Meanwhile in metric we have just litres and multiples/subdivisions thereof.
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$20, same as in town.
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no one uses a dry gallon.
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yea, because a firkin is such a common unit. I'm no advocate of the imperial system, but you're being purposely obtuse.
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I think you're missing the point that I'm being purposely obtuse to make.
The fact that it's called a quart might make the ratio fairly obvious, as you claim, but it says nothing about the base unit that it's a quarter of. Quarter pint, quarter gallon, quarter firkin, or quarter tun? Unless you already know the imperial system, nothing is obvious at all.
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Growing up in Australia (where such things aren't too common anymore) .. it took me years before I realised that a "Quarter Pounder" from McDonalds wasn't some random name but actually described in some way what you were getting.
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We don't actually call them that in the US. We say "Half a Dingo."
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That's more of an Inland Sea area colloquialism.
The hill folk all say "Rat's Teste," or Testes for the double.
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No, it describes the weight before cooking. Who knows what you'll actually end up with :)
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The name does suggest a 1/4 ratio, but not necessarily quart/gallon. It could be quart/pint or gallon/quart (and so on), if you really didn't know the imperial system.
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Don't Americans not actually use the word "quarter"? I've always seen it written as a "fourth". (Personally I think that if true, this is a bit odd since you still use "half"...)
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As an American, I hereby state that I frequently use the word "quarter"
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I'm not sure what you're actually asking with the double negative, but quarter is common to describe a fourth of anything. A Quarter is a $0.25 piece, the coin. When telling time, one could say "a quarter after four," or "a quarter till 8." Basketball and football are played in four quarters, as is youth soccer. Once the kids get older they switch to 45 min halves in soccer. And of course the quarter pound burger.
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OK maybe I stand corrected. I forgot about the "quarter" as a coin.
Although I still hear "a fourth" a lot when talking about anything divided into 4 parts.
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Basketball and u.s. football have four quarters. Also 7:45 is a quarter to 8
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They are inconsistent because they predate the scientific revolution. Wiki each unit. They all come from very old and very odd origins.
SI units were created for science.
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I weep for people who cant figure out a quart(er gallon) is 1/4th of a gallon.
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I was thinking the same, but then I remembered that the Imperial system and everything based on it was created by a bunch of trolls, wouldn't even be surprised if it had 5 quarters in a gallon just to fuck with everybody.
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This is the same with me, only I can measure distances equally well in Imperial and Metric. Sometimes it's even easier to measure some thing in Imperial.
Like today in physics we were drawing some figure out on a piece of paper and I quickly found the middle using the Imperial system, since paper is 8.5 x 11 Inches, then used cm for the rest of the measurements in the figure.
Also Imperial is very useful in woodworking, since that's just how everything is standardized, I guess if everything here was standardized in metric we'd use the metric system for everything. Some things are though, many companies only show their volume content in metric, which is fine because I have no idea how to do volumes in Imperial.
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we have a different paper size system in europe, standard paper size is A4 which is 297mm by 210mm, A3 is double the size of A4, A5 is half the size of A4
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Ahh, I never understood those AX sizes on the copiers. But 297mm? That had to be based off of some other size originally and converted to mm.
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according to wiki it's just based off maths
The base A0 size of paper is defined to have an area of one m². With the given aspect ratio of square root of two, this corresponds to a piece of paper which its longer side is one metre multiplied by the square root of the square root (that is, the fourth root) of two and the shorter side being the inverse of this value. Rounded to millimetres the A0 paper size is 841 by 1,189 millimetres (33.1 × 46.8 in). Successive paper sizes in the series A1, A2, A3, and so forth, are defined by halving the preceding paper size along the larger dimension. The most frequently used paper size is A4 (210 × 297 mm).
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Like today in physics we were drawing some figure out on a piece of paper and I quickly found the middle using the Imperial system, since paper is 8.5 x 11 Inches, then used cm for the rest of the measurements in the figure.
You can find the center of a piece of paper by folding it twice, once on each axis.
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Oh you think you're so smart!
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Just give up and move to Canada.
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because I'm completely forward on this compared to everyone else I meet.
FTFY. imperial system is backward.
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- Cup = 3 letters = 2^3 = 8
- Pint = 4 letters = 2^4 = 16
- Quart= 5 letters= 2^5 = 32
Gallon, Y u no have 7 letters!
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Gallons ?
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Gallons-y!
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That's something David Tennant would say.
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No! Really?
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System, Y U So Pointlessly Complicated!
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Gallion
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This. I vote we spell it Gallion so we can have this useful mnemonic. Makes the same amount of sense to not use the metric system IMO.
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Don't forget that it's a pound a pint.
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Only during happy hour.
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I remember a few (5 or 6?) years back when it actually was a pound a pint... now it's more like three quid..
Which makes me confused and miserable, as does everything else that changes over time.
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My local is doing 4 pints for a tenner till 8pm at the minute. Feels just like 2005 again :-)
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2005?
I'm sure I could get 5 or 6 pints for a tenner back in 2005. You must live down south, where the beer is even more expensive?
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I think this illustrates how silly this system is. US pint or UK pint? Pound the force or pound the mass? And what's that in ounce? In fluid ounce?
Upvoted for relevant name though.
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A pound never measures mass. That's what a stone is for.
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We have no stones in the US, only Iraq.
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How could it be a pound force?
As to US pint versus UK pint, it doesn't matter, neither is exactly right anyway.
The number of fluid ozes in a (US) pint is in the main post.
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What, a US pint should be 470mL, a UK pint is about 20% larger at 570mL..
If someone is filling one up with beer and giving it to me, It will very much matter which glass they choose.
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568 ml
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The question was "which one weighs a pound". The answer is it doesn't matter, neither weighs a pound. It's just for estimation.
The question wasn't about buying beer in pints.
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A pound is a measure of weight and therefore force. However it's true that usually a pound is used to refer to the mass that weighs a pound around sea level.
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A pound is a measure of mass. The pound force is the measure of force that Earth's gravitation exerts on it.
When the saying "a pint's a pound" is clearly referring to the mass since a pint of anything has no inherent force. It happens to have one on Earth, but on earth, it has 1 lb-f anyway so what's the big complaint?
The saying is so nebulous anyway, I can't believe people bothered to whine. There's plenty of info left unstated, like all the conditions.
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Only water or other things with a density of 1.
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Unfortunately, that's a common misconception.
A pint of water at 77^o F at 1 atmosphere of pressure (see how I used Imperial units there?) weighs 16.6428 oz. A pound is 16 oz, so they're not quite the same.
Edit By the way, I'm talking about the US pint of 16 fl oz, not the Imperial pint.
2
the atm pressure scale is the shining moment in imperial measurements. So intuitive and easy to understand. Not sure if it works well in science and such.
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"A pint's a pound the world around" Thanks Alton Brown!
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I'm at a [6] and think this finally stuck for me.
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How cute! And if only you had a system that didn't require a lovely picture of a robot to remember. You know, something in multiples of ten, like our fingers and numerical system? Like oh.. I don't know...THE FUCKING METRIC SYSTEM YOU IDIOTS!!??
14
It doesn't. Gallon > Half Gallon > Quart > Pint > Cup
Each one is smaller by a factor of two. What's so hard about that?
1
You had me until Half Gallon.
5
you can do better. Quart sounds like quarter: 1/4 gallon, or half a half gallon. Pint is a beer, and cup is half of that.
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Yeah, but odd how NIST is now looking for a new standard for the kilogram since the current standard weighs less than a kilo.
Granted the current kilo std is the last metric std based on a physical object.
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a fitting name
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Yes, and all art should be rectangular! Who's with me!?
And what's with those Chinese? C'mon, people. 6,000 characters? Break that stuff up into some syllables and let's talk about an alphabet already.
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This makes me want to measure my beer consumption in gallons. And in robots.
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"Hey honey, can you pick up a robot of milk?" sounds cool enough one might be able to talk a significant other into picking up groceries. :)
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Technically you would just want your spouse to pick up a robot torso. Unless you guys drink a ton of milk.
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The robot of milk is 4 gallons (not counting the head.) We've purchased 3 gallons on the weekly trip in the past, so a larger family I could see getting a full robot of milk.
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Yesterday I had to put in 3.5 robots of gas into my car. Can you believe gas is almost $15 a robot these days?
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A twelve pack is roughly a gallon.
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I wanted to make a joke about how you know your beer because you are an alcoholic, but your name makes it very clear that in fact you just know your units.
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OMG I know new things now. Thanks 8-year-old girl!
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I am sorry that your niece has had to learn that primitive and backward system.
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Then one where, between my arm and my fingers, my hand seems to split in two... indeed it is a primitive and backward system.
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That's cute, but isn't your niece a little young to be browsing Reddit?
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I taught her how to draw the Reddit alien last week, so she drew this at school and brought it to me.
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That really doesn't look like an 8 year old's hand writing.
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And what makes you the authority on 8 year olds' handwriting?
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Speaking as a former eight year old.
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you're right, it doesn't, its the new "look what my gf made". Terrific for upvotes!
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I only question it because it's rather neat for a child's handwriting, even though girl's tend to have neater handwriting than boys. For instance, the letters are identical in shape every time they're written, straight lines w/ marker (kids have trouble drawing straight without erasing), organized lettering (diagonal "Quart" and all cap "PINT"), mix of cursive lettering (Z), and, finally, the fact that it wasn't drawn by an 8-year-old.
Someone is getting trolled, that's for sure.
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Because that's what all 8 year olds love to do. BS.
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Also, a proper pint is 20oz (you've been being scammed by bartenders for ages)
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According to this, it depends on which "pint" you're talking about.
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This was my favorite part of the article. I love when laws make things that aren't correct law. Like the article about Indiana trying to change Pi to 3.2.
US regulation 21 CFR 101.9(b)(5)(viii) also defines a fluid ounce as exactly 30 millilitres, but this is for use in nutrition labeling only.[5]
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Trying to change a natural constant by law is absurd, but perhaps you are not aware that regulating weights and measures is, in fact, a power of the US Congress? Everybody likes to complain that the US is not on the metric system, but actually, we are. Congress redefined an inch to be exactly 2.54 cm. If they wanted to redefine a fluid ounce to be 30 mL, they certainly have that authority.
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I understand that they could change the value and it is different than the Pi law. However, the aren't changing its value, just its value in one use case. I guess it makes labeling easier.
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In England, right?
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yeah. I'd be very dissapointed if i didnt know this and went out for a drink somewhere in the US.
1
And Canada, and Australia....
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That's why I drink at a bar that serves imperial pints.
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an excellent way to teach something that we should no longer need to teach
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I call bullshit. That handwriting is obviously an adults.
Karma whore.
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who upvotes this shit??????
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Every time I see this bullshit I feel like they are talking about that weird Harry Potter money system.
Use the metric system. That is all.
6
what time is it? How many seconds in a day?
2
why don't you just say "hey guys look at this cool reminder I made for your kids!"
I don't believe you for a second your "8 year old niece" taught you this.
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It amuses me how readily I suspend disbelief. Didn't even occur to me until this far down the comments that it's unlikely for an eight year old girl to draw the reddit alien. Not impossible, but skepticism is justified.
1
Her writing is suspiciously elegant for an eight year old. I've never ever seen an eight year old with the G's A's and Z's of this "girl", and I've read tons of letters from 4-10 year olds.
Reddit and the internet in general has made me very suspicious of these drawing supposedly written by children, which seems to be a instant way to karma heaven.
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I've read tons of letters from 4-10 year olds
ಠ_ಠ
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It was a competition for a company I used to work for, where they wrote in and wrote a short story that would be turned in to a comic strip.
Or I work for the FBI, and it's my job to read EVERYONE'S letters.
It's one of the two.
3
1l = 100 cl = 1000 ml
Base 10
Y U NO?
If reddit gold automatically put metric after every imperial measurement in brackets, I would buy it.
And filtered out all USA-centric posts we Canadians don't care about
FTFY
Its more like abowt.
You should just go to reddit.ca.
That really should just redirect to reddit.com/r/canada.
I saw reddit.ca and immediately opened it in a new tab. I was disappointed that it failed to load. :-(
FTFY
ONLY TWO OF OUR SENATORS EVEN ADMIT TO BEING CORPORATE SHILLS. MAKE THEM PRESIDENT
It can do - there's a part of it called filteReddit. I set it to hide r/atheism from r/all and posts containing Louis Vuitton when people still cared about that.
Because you can't make an awesome comic with that system. Plus, we've got all these damn rulers and old recipe books sitting around....
It's called a metric centipede. 1 body, 100 legs, 1000 little hairs on each.
Metripedes.
FTFY
Wouldn't it be 10 hairs per leg?
True, ten toes per leg.
What goes 99-thump, 99-thump, 99-thump?
A centipede with a wooden leg.
I'm sure there's a statistic out there about how the US can afford to switch over to metric overnight if they switch off their war machine for something like 2 hours.^[citation^needed]
Edit: Can't keep both words supered without piling them on top of each other, bah.
They could switch to metric overnight if they would just man up and do it like every other country. I like how Americans trot out the conversion problem as if all the other countries magically started out using metric and never had to switch.
Well to be honest the problem with America is the heterogeneity not only between states but within them. In a country like Australia or England you have 2 or 3 types of communities(metro, suburban and bush) and even for all their individual differences they pretty much stick to their type well. In the US there seems to be at least 10 of those different types of towns and cities if not more, thus making rolling anything out nationally more difficult for them.
Of course that doesn't mean they can't use a nationwide priority reshuffle
We could afford to give every man, woman, and child in America a coupon for a $10 blowjob if we weren't at war, but that's just about as likely as switching to the metric system.
The worst part of that plan is that no one would use the coupons, and the company that sold and distributed them all would just rake in the cash. It's like the unused portion of a gift card that just becomes free money for whatever company it was purchased from.
I got excited but then realized you were joking.
Using a non-breaking space works.^[citation needed]
"dear everyone we will now start using metric so for every measurement in imperial the metric equivelant needs to be put beside it. Thank you"
hey look one minute in and barely any money wasted five years later "okay, now these imperial units are redundant, thanks for your time."
seriously - let me run some fuckign countries
I'm not sure if you noticed, but the government does require the metric measurements to be on all food products, and our cars all have a k/ph option/scale. Part of your plan has been put in place, but even though it's labeled, do you have any idea how many litres are in the products you buy (excluding a 2L of Coke) or how many grams are in your cereal box. It's on the label.
* This post assumes you're in the US.
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Yeah so what, they also going to pull each bolt out so we can use 10mm instead of 3/8.
Think about that for a second...
The best thing about working on the Japanese car is that there is a 95% chance that any smallish bolt is 10mm. I'm not even sure why the 9 & 11 mm sockets are in the set.
base 10. because youve got 10 fingers per hand. no drawing necessary*
*not applicable for those who have lost digits or have genetic mutations causing extra fingers
What kind of freak of nature are you? :O
A genetically mutated one, it seems.
Upvoted for massive hands!
This incorrect. It's Base 10 because the most significant digit is the next sequence after the highest single digit in the counting system. Binary: 00, 01, 10 Octal: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10 Decimal: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10 Hexadecimal: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, 0E, 0F, 10 More funniness here: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gomw1/my_8yearold_niece_taught_me_the_reddit_way_to/c1p7ot2
I'm still sticking with my claim of 10 fingers per hand
Reagan.
FTFY. If people had been using their brains, 2 systems could have been used without any danger.
Trve scientists use 3.
If only they had labeled their units.
1000 ml = 100 cl = 10 dl = 1 l FTFY
Disregard deciliters, acquire karma.
FTFY
TIL US fluids are base-8, measurements are base-12. So simple!
Simple? EVERYTHING is base-10 in the metric simple, that's what I call simple.
3 tsp in a tbsp, 2 tbps in a fl.oz., 8 fl.oz. in a cup, 2 cup in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon, I'm not sure what's next
12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 5280 ft in a mile.
I'm not sure either is base anything, but I do see one eight and one 12. I would say liquids are base 2 and (except for stupid tsp) and length is base 3.
2girls in 1 cup ?
Wouldn't they be base-2 since the subsequent volumes are increased by a factor of 2 and not a factor of 8, not to mention 8 is 2^3?
REDDIT: Y U NO METRIC?!
Do all bases not use 10 to represent a magnitude change. In base 8 1(100)=10•10=1000(1/10).
Metric could be any base and the simplicity remains.
All bases are Base 10!!! Or... All your Base are belong to 10.
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every base is base 10 2009 2010
Oh, thanks for bringing up this totally revelatory point that definitely has not long since been beaten to death on the internet. You're truly a pioneer, bro. Your smug, pedantic replies are truly a treat.
1 gallon = 2 half gallon
1 half gallon = 2 quarts
1 quart = 2 pints
1 pint = 2 cups
What's so hard about that?
It's not hard, it's just stupid. Why have a system where the measurement doesn't actually have any self-reference to a base measurement? How do I know how many cups are in a quart? Fucked if I know. However, I do know that there are 1000 millilitres in a litre. Easier to use at a glance for measurement calculations.
4 - cups and quarts are two units apart so it's 2 x 2 = 4. Not hard.
I know there are 16 cups in a gallon, 128 fl. oz. in a gallon, 3 teaspoons in a Tablespoon, but the thing is, we rarely convert units. All that about unit conversion is nonsense. If I want to know how much cups something is, I measure it in cups. If I want gallons, I measure in gallons. The base 10 convenience is irrelevant in imperial.
How many cups in an imperial ton of water? Get your measuring devices warmed up...
I can tell you right now it is 1 kL per metric tonne assuming 1g per mL. (Standard Conditions)
Because base 12 is right. Even foreign (fags) contractors use it. We should add 2 numbers.
I hear nice things of base 9 too, both are far better than 10.
Base 12
1⁄2 = 0.6 1⁄3 = 0.4 1/5 = for all intents and purposes, 0.25, for intensive purposes, 0.24972497... 1⁄4 = 0.3 1⁄6 = 0.2 1⁄8 = 0.16 1⁄9 = 0.14
BUT DARN NOW YOU FOOLS CAN'T COUNT ON YOUR FINGERS. WAT YOU GOING TO DO??
comparison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Recurring_digits
You guys you eat sagan's dick and accept thstatus quo but you don't really you want to instate bad guy fawkes.
I'm American and what the fuck is this? I was expecting your username to be "ILikeItHard" or some shit.
There are some things to be said for base twelve, or base 30, or even base 60, but such discussions don't generally include the word "fags." It becomes explicable when considering bad trolling for the sake of bad trolling: Fenquing (1 link karma, -41 comment karma, 28 days)