this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Sure. How much does water in a 1ft × 2ft × 3ft aquarium weigh?
In metric, an equivalent calculation is 30 cm × 60 cm × 90 cm = 3 × 6 × 9 dm^3 = 162 𝑙 ≡ 162 kg of water, and if you're pedantic, the weight is around 1620 N or closer to 1590 N for 𝑔 = 9.8 m·s^-2^. All calculated in my head.
A cubic foot is 7.48 gallons, close enough to 7.5. 1 gallon of water is 8.33 lbs ≈ 25/3.
6 * 7.5 = 45 gallons
45 * 25/3 = 375 lbs -- easy mental math. Sure, the "accurate" answer is 373.87 lbs, but the aquarium probably isn't filled with distilled water, perfectly dimensionally accurate, or filled to that exact capacity.
Oh god this is what we mean
Oh just wait until you see imperial hex screws. In metric you get them in screwdriver size relating to mm. US hex screws are like 16/64 of an inch or 5/16 of an apple. And of course they don't relate to metric at all and you can't use the same tools.
Or fucking AWG. Higher number means smaller diameter wire, and Americans are afraid of decimal or negative numbers so large diameters are 00, 000 etc. The formula is batshit insane
so people just use a lookup table.
Gauge is historically number of passes through gauging machine. With the machine and material in question being different for every single one. We took that and put it to a standard, so it's super messy and makes no sense.
Well, I wonder what kind of gauging machine can do -3 passes for 0000 wire... /s
Too bad AWG is so ubiquitous it's starting to creep into Europe.