3 ms·
I'm curious, were you calculating or using (or thinking about, had some train of thought about) this information or did you just happen to notice the mixed unit
by logicallee 10y ago
I'm curious, were you calculating or using (or thinking about, had some train of thought about) this information or did you just happen to notice the mixed units? I mean because I can't picture either one or ten billion cubic feet of water so it's just a very large number to me and I wouldn't notice that difference.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- abecedarius 10y agoFor me it helps to think about the cube root of the figure -- a billion cubic feet is 10^9, meaning a cube 10^3 feet on a side. About a fifth of a mile. A meter is over 3 feet, so a cubic meter is over 3^3 or 27 cubic feet. You can ask google for a precise value: https://www.google.com/search?q=cubic+meter+in+cubic+feet https://www.google.com/search?q=cubic+meter+in+cubic+feet And 10^3 meters on a side would be a kilometer.
- abduhl 10y agoOne billion cubic meters is a cubic kilometer - a cube with each side measuring 1km. 11 of these would be a cube with ~2.25 km sides. Or slightly less than a mile and a half per side.
- logicallee 10y agoI never thought about the fact that a billion is "just" a thousand times a thousand times a thousand. So I thought of something I could picture a thousand of - for example millimeters. A thousand mm is just 1 meter, so I can easily see/picture a billion of something (cubic millimeters of air) right in front of me (as 1m x 1m x 1m). Neat!
- grzm 10y agoThe Powers of Ten film comes to mind, helps put things in perspective as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Ten_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Ten_(film) It's a classic, by Charles and Ray Eames.