17 ms·

Metric makes sense in science, sure. But our system makes more sense to humans. A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters. A pint of beer is easier than its

by axaxs 6y ago

Metric makes sense in science, sure. But our system makes more sense to humans. A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters. A pint of beer is easier than its metric equivalent. As a gearhead, I absolutely hate the metric/standard difference. But if metric wants to take over the world, I feel they need more human submeasurements.

fermienrico 6y ago
That doesn't make sense. A liter is better to imagine than a gallon (which is a huge jug). A pint of beer is same as saying 500ml of beer - both are equally easy to grasp.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Beer pouring is inexact. 500 ML is never 500ML. A system based on halfs is inexact but more accurate.
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    Have half a litre then. Speaking as someone from the only country that legally mandates beer in both pints (on draught) and metric (in bottles), I prefer a (UK, 20oz) pint if I'm drinking, because it's larger and I'm thirsty. For every other reason though litres are easier to reason about. The US 16 oz pint doesn't even have the benefit of being larger!
    - fanf2 6y ago
      But usually in British pubs, beer is served in glasses that are a pint up to the brim, so if you are served beer with any head at all it’s probably closer to half a litre than a pint.
  - atomlib 6y ago
    It's physically impossible to measure exactly 500.(0) mL [500.0000000000… mL with infinite number of zeroes] of any liquid with absolute accuracy. It's just the law of metrology. There always will be an error, you will always be able to create better tools to add extra decimal places to your measurement and find more error. The question is how much of error you can tolerate in any given situation. The error has nothing to do with units of measurements chosen. You cannot measure exactly 1.(0) gallon [1.0000000000… gallon with infinite number of zeroes] of liquid with absolute accuracy either. In engineering this would be resolved with something like 500 ± 10 mL. In consumer goods there are either regulations or you get, say, 505 mL so you have nothing to complain about. And you would never be able to tell the difference. By the way, ML is megaliter. Milliliter is mL.
  - xorcist 6y ago
    That's a lot of beer.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      524'151 tuns? With sigfigs, call it 500 kilotuns[1]. [1] unfortunately https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit) leaves me no wiser as to what volume the unit "shit tun" might measure.
    - fanf2 6y ago
      The London beer flood was only about 1 Ml https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood
boomboomsubban 6y ago
All this is saying is "I'm more familiar with a gallon than a liter." There's nothing that makes a gallon more sensible to humans.
- axaxs 6y ago
  It's not just about the gallon, but its base 2 subunits.
  - huonpine 6y ago
    Where I live a pint is 0.5L and a metric cup is 0.25L.
- brigandish 6y ago
  It does if you have 8 pints, and pints are far more convenient as a size for many liquids than a litre.
  - bitcharmer 6y ago
    Why are pints more convenient?
    - brigandish 6y ago
      It's easier to carry beer and milk in those sizes and they're about the right amount for use. A cup of beer is too small, a litre too big as you'll end up with a flat beer by the end. A pint of milk will give 2 people their breakfast and enough left over to add for tea for the day. Rare to find some off milk in the bottom of a pint bottle. I'm guessing that why they were sold in those amounts vs some other choice. It's just my experience though.
      - kps 6y ago
        > It's easier to carry beer and milk in those sizes and they're about the right amount for use. The US pint is 16 ounces, vs the Imperial pint of 20 ounces. That's because no one really wants that much American beer.
NalNezumi 6y ago
Any argument that is "makes more sense to humans" that is actually based on repeated exposure to the concept/metric since young age fall flat on itself. It makes more sense to YOU because you've used it since early life, so you have created an mental model for it. Countries with metric system, people have done the same. As one example, In a recent after-work conversation, some one mentioned the stupidity of the "stone" measurement, upon the Italian, Canadian, Japanese, American, Swedish, Mexican, Chinese and the Russian all agreed it was the most non-intuitive stupid thing they have ever heard. Except the Brit at the place, who (in vain) tried to explain how it made sense and made "more sense to humans"
- sho 6y ago
  You're spot on with the mental models. If I try to imagine a gallon, I think of 2x2L bottles, one of them not quite full. A pint and I imagine a 600mL soft drink or water bottle. When you start having to do double conversions (eg miles per gallon) it becomes hopeless - that means nothing to me - and I have to convert to l/100km. These "intuitiveness" arguments are silly. It's whatever you're used to. So with that realisation, we may as well choose the more universally self-consistent and useful system, which is indisputably metric.
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    > A pint and I imagine a 600mL soft drink Careful, that's a British pint. An American pint is closer to 400mL.
- teddyh 6y ago
  > It makes more sense to YOU because you've used it since early life, so you have created an mental model for it. Countries with metric system, people have done the same. There was an xkcd comic with lists of ready-to-go mental models about metric units for people who grew up without them: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/526/
- axaxs 6y ago
  I'm not British, but I do agree that the stone measurement does make sense in a human way. It's pretty easy to see how it came about. Oh take a rock about the size of x(whatever x was agreed upon at the time), and see how many that item weighs. In a time without precise machinery, or any machinery at all, you can see how such a system was thought up. Do you disagree with the above, or do you just think in the modern world it shouldn't exist anymore?
SquareWheel 6y ago
I could just as well say that 1 liter is easy, but 0.264172 gallons is complex. Using a conversion as a justification just isn't a fair comparison.
boring_twenties 6y ago
I'm pretty sure metric took over the world a long time ago?
elygre 6y ago
Why is a gallon easier than a liter? One desirable property with the SI system is how compatible they are: a cube with 10cm sides is a liter, so it’s easy to imagine the space requirements for a 40 liter tank. A gallon is 231 cubic inches, which is much less natural to work with.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Because a gallon is divisible in human unit. A quart is a quarter or a gallon, a pint is half that. 250ml is both exotic sounding and guaranteed not as exact when measured in halves.
  - bitcharmer 6y ago
    >Because a gallon is divisible in human unit. And the litre isn't? Sorry, I fail to see your argument here.
  - dirktheman 6y ago
    And why would a quarter of a gallon be more convenient or 'divisible in human unit' than a quarter of a liter...? Say, I walk into a bar. I order a beer. Here (in The Netherlands), since I didn't specify, I get a small beer of whatever's on tap. A small beer is 250ml-350ml, depending on the establishment. I could also order a half liter (500ml) or ask for a pitcher. So, just as in the US you don't order "can I have 128 fluid ounces of beer" you don't order "250ml of beer" in the rest of the world. Also, the fact that it 'sounds exotic' says more about you than about the system... and 'guaranteed not as exact'? Really? Let's say you have to measure a gallon of water, and I have to measure a liter. I just whip out a digital kitchen scale and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters. Cause, you know, metric units are interchangeable. I double dare you to come up with a more exact measurement in Imperial units using simple kitchen tools.
    - avar 6y ago
      > In The Netherlands [...] a small beer of whatever's on tap [...] is 250ml-350ml Traveler beware: Just because it's true that a Dutch "vaasje" glass is 230-330ml[1] the actual volume of beer you get is at best 80% of that. The Dutch pouring practice of handing patrons a glass of beer with up to 1/4 receding foam on the top would cause a riot across the channel. > [...]and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters[...] No, not exactly. Not even under standard conditions. It's one of the unfortunate warts of the modern metric system that the actual value drifted from exactly 1000, almost, but not exactly[2]. 1. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaasje https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaasje 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density#Water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density#Water
tsimionescu 6y ago
You've never left the US, have you? No one uses 3.8 liters of gas, they obviously use 1 liter of gas, or 10 liters of gas. Most cars have about 40 or 50 liter tanks, and gas is paid by the liter. Juice is also bought by the liter, usually in 2L bottles for a family dinner, or 500mL bottles for one person alone.
- axaxs 6y ago
  I've been all over the world. Don't make assumptions based on your own argument.
  - sho 6y ago
    Well you sort of betrayed yourself imagining all those hapless foreigners, struggling to fill their cars in multiples of 3.8L .. In most countries you could go your whole life without having to know what a "gallon" is or even hearing the word.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    And have you seen anywhere people using 3.8l or 0.334 meters or 12.5cm as common measurements? Or in general, people having problems with expressing quantities in simple multiples or fractions of liters, (kilo)grams, and meters? I do understand that it is hard to adjust intuitions from one system to the other, but I can't imagine how someone can think that people have problems using the measurement system they learned in primary school.
- roywashere 6y ago
  2l is very large in my (Dutch) idea. Orange juice in my country is typically sold in 1l cartons and more recently also 1.5l. But the latter only for the most popular flavors. The same is true for milk.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    I think I should have soda 'soda', not 'juice'. Here in Romania, things like orange juice and milk are also usually sold in 1l bottles. It's things like Coca Cola and Fanta that are typically sold in either 0.5l or 2l bottles (even 2.5l around holidays; but 1.5l is also becoming increasingly common).
kevindong 6y ago
The US system's main strength is that there are a bunch of human-scale subunits (gallon, pint, cup, etc.). However, the issue is that there's a lot of those subunits (some useful, some not). Converting between the units is a pain: not because the conversion is hard (the conversion ratios are usually whole numbers), but rather because there's a lot of units and it's difficult to remember how they relate to each other (e.g. what's the relation between a pint and a gallon?).
- oblio 6y ago
  Why is the gallon a "human sized unit"? What does it even represent? A hat size?
  - DanBC 6y ago
    And it's weird to call a unit "human sized" when there are different versions of it. A US gallon is 3.785 litres. A UK gallon is 4.546 litres. Which if these is more human-sized?
    - Bayart 6y ago
      >Which if these is more human-sized? The US gallon since they've got more people per capita.
  - kevindong 6y ago
    It's a useful quantity because the variety of units allow for the speaker to drop the numerical portion of a quantity of a substance. Meaning, the phrase "gallon of milk" is ever so slightly easier to say/verbalize than "four liters of milk." Or alternatively, "half gallon of milk" vs "two liters of milk." Likewise: "pint of beer" vs. "<half liter/5 deciliters> of beer", "1 cup of flour" vs. "<quarter liter/250 mL/25 centiliters/120 grams> of flour".
    - eythian 6y ago
      But you're not saying "four litres of milk" that often. You're saying "a carton of milk" and typically the people understand that that is a litre or 1.5l or whatever it is you usually buy. As for beer, again, where I drink it's typically either unspecified or a "small", being 25cl and 15cl respectively (this being a nerdy craft beer bar where smaller sizes are preferred.) If you do want to say the size, you can just say 25 or 15, no one is going to think you want 15 litres because that'd be weird.
realusername 6y ago
> A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters Most people in the world just buy their petrol per liter directly and it's priced at <currency amount> / liter, there is no conversion needed, the "gallon" is just an arbitrary measure.
- rimliu 6y ago
  And we do not measure fuel consumption in "miles per gallon" , but "liters per 100km".
  - jaclaz 6y ago
    >And we do not measure fuel consumption in "miles per gallon" , but "liters per 100km". Actually that is the "official" way of measurement (what you see on the car specifications or what the on board computer tells you), in speaking it is more common to say that you made 22 Km/liter (or 18, etc.) than to say you used 4.55 liters/100 Km (or 5.56 liters/100 Km).
    - avar 6y ago
      I've never heard anyone say that. Who are these people that are reading fuel consumption in their dashboard and doing the mental arithmetic to convert that to km/liter? I've only heard "my car spends about 5-8", meaning 5-8 l/100 km in casual conversation. I.e. the number you'd read directly from the dashboard.
      - jaclaz 6y ago
        Well, maybe it is just local, but before you had liters per 100 km or actually a dashboard at all (not so many year ago) all you had was a lousy analogic something with a hand that went from F to E and the only way to calculate (approximately) fuel consumption was to know how many liters you put on the refill and have the km since last refill. So you had (say) 30 liters needed to refill and travelled for 450 Km, now is it easier to divide 30 by 450 and multiply by 100 ( or divide 30 by 4.5) or divide 450 by 30? Besides the difference between (say) 18 and 19 Km/l is (IMHO) easier to visualize/appreciate than the difference between 5.56 and 5.26 l/100 km.
alkonaut 6y ago
> A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters I'm pretty sure this is an attempt at humor. Or I'm not sure but I hope.
avar 6y ago
> As a gearhead, I absolutely hate the metric/standard difference. To take the example of the F150 there's a 26 gallon fuel tank, but then the engine size in in liters, transmission fluid is in quarts, windshield washer reservoir in liters etc. Even on the most popular American-made car in the US you need to deal with an absolute mess of different measurement systems, on e.g. a German-made car all of these would be metric.
- vinay427 6y ago
  This is still better than tires, where the diameter seems to be listed in inches around the world even though other measurements such as the width are usually in millimeters everywhere.
  - avar 6y ago
    Tires are their own special measurement hell. A 17 inch tire does not have a diameter of 17 inches. Those 17 inches are the diameter of the rim it's supposed to sit on[1]. Thus e.g. a 245/45 R17 tire has a diameter of around 26 inches. As you can deduct from the "simple" formula of: 245/10*45/100/2.54*2+17 =~ 25.7 I.e. the width is 245mm, the cross section of the tire is 45% of that, or ~110mm, multiply that by 2 and add the 17 inches and you've got the outer tire diameter. 1. https://www.moderntiredealer.com/8644/understanding-tire-dimensions https://www.moderntiredealer.com/8644/understanding-tire-dim...
perilunar 6y ago
A gallon of gas is 3.785 L in the US. In the rest of the British Empire it was 4.546 L. It definitely was not easier back when both gallons were in common use. And by "pint of beer", do you mean an Imperial pint (568 mL) or a US liquid pint (473 mL)?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by axaxs 6y ago

fermienrico 6y ago

That doesn't make sense. A liter is better to imagine than a gallon (which is a huge jug). A pint of beer is same as saying 500ml of beer - both are equally easy to grasp.

axaxs 6y ago
Beer pouring is inexact. 500 ML is never 500ML. A system based on halfs is inexact but more accurate.
- ascorbic 6y ago
  Have half a litre then. Speaking as someone from the only country that legally mandates beer in both pints (on draught) and metric (in bottles), I prefer a (UK, 20oz) pint if I'm drinking, because it's larger and I'm thirsty. For every other reason though litres are easier to reason about. The US 16 oz pint doesn't even have the benefit of being larger!
  - fanf2 6y ago
    But usually in British pubs, beer is served in glasses that are a pint up to the brim, so if you are served beer with any head at all it’s probably closer to half a litre than a pint.
- atomlib 6y ago
  It's physically impossible to measure exactly 500.(0) mL [500.0000000000… mL with infinite number of zeroes] of any liquid with absolute accuracy. It's just the law of metrology. There always will be an error, you will always be able to create better tools to add extra decimal places to your measurement and find more error. The question is how much of error you can tolerate in any given situation. The error has nothing to do with units of measurements chosen. You cannot measure exactly 1.(0) gallon [1.0000000000… gallon with infinite number of zeroes] of liquid with absolute accuracy either. In engineering this would be resolved with something like 500 ± 10 mL. In consumer goods there are either regulations or you get, say, 505 mL so you have nothing to complain about. And you would never be able to tell the difference. By the way, ML is megaliter. Milliliter is mL.
- xorcist 6y ago
  That's a lot of beer.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    524'151 tuns? With sigfigs, call it 500 kilotuns[1]. [1] unfortunately https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit) leaves me no wiser as to what volume the unit "shit tun" might measure.
  - fanf2 6y ago
    The London beer flood was only about 1 Ml https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

boomboomsubban 6y ago

All this is saying is "I'm more familiar with a gallon than a liter." There's nothing that makes a gallon more sensible to humans.

axaxs 6y ago
It's not just about the gallon, but its base 2 subunits.
- huonpine 6y ago
  Where I live a pint is 0.5L and a metric cup is 0.25L.
brigandish 6y ago
It does if you have 8 pints, and pints are far more convenient as a size for many liquids than a litre.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  Why are pints more convenient?
  - brigandish 6y ago
    It's easier to carry beer and milk in those sizes and they're about the right amount for use. A cup of beer is too small, a litre too big as you'll end up with a flat beer by the end. A pint of milk will give 2 people their breakfast and enough left over to add for tea for the day. Rare to find some off milk in the bottom of a pint bottle. I'm guessing that why they were sold in those amounts vs some other choice. It's just my experience though.
    - kps 6y ago
      > It's easier to carry beer and milk in those sizes and they're about the right amount for use. The US pint is 16 ounces, vs the Imperial pint of 20 ounces. That's because no one really wants that much American beer.

NalNezumi 6y ago

Any argument that is "makes more sense to humans" that is actually based on repeated exposure to the concept/metric since young age fall flat on itself. It makes more sense to YOU because you've used it since early life, so you have created an mental model for it. Countries with metric system, people have done the same. As one example, In a recent after-work conversation, some one mentioned the stupidity of the "stone" measurement, upon the Italian, Canadian, Japanese, American, Swedish, Mexican, Chinese and the Russian all agreed it was the most non-intuitive stupid thing they have ever heard. Except the Brit at the place, who (in vain) tried to explain how it made sense and made "more sense to humans"

sho 6y ago
You're spot on with the mental models. If I try to imagine a gallon, I think of 2x2L bottles, one of them not quite full. A pint and I imagine a 600mL soft drink or water bottle. When you start having to do double conversions (eg miles per gallon) it becomes hopeless - that means nothing to me - and I have to convert to l/100km. These "intuitiveness" arguments are silly. It's whatever you're used to. So with that realisation, we may as well choose the more universally self-consistent and useful system, which is indisputably metric.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > A pint and I imagine a 600mL soft drink Careful, that's a British pint. An American pint is closer to 400mL.
teddyh 6y ago
> It makes more sense to YOU because you've used it since early life, so you have created an mental model for it. Countries with metric system, people have done the same. There was an xkcd comic with lists of ready-to-go mental models about metric units for people who grew up without them: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/526/
axaxs 6y ago
I'm not British, but I do agree that the stone measurement does make sense in a human way. It's pretty easy to see how it came about. Oh take a rock about the size of x(whatever x was agreed upon at the time), and see how many that item weighs. In a time without precise machinery, or any machinery at all, you can see how such a system was thought up. Do you disagree with the above, or do you just think in the modern world it shouldn't exist anymore?

SquareWheel 6y ago

I could just as well say that 1 liter is easy, but 0.264172 gallons is complex. Using a conversion as a justification just isn't a fair comparison.

boring_twenties 6y ago

I'm pretty sure metric took over the world a long time ago?

elygre 6y ago

Why is a gallon easier than a liter? One desirable property with the SI system is how compatible they are: a cube with 10cm sides is a liter, so it’s easy to imagine the space requirements for a 40 liter tank. A gallon is 231 cubic inches, which is much less natural to work with.

axaxs 6y ago
Because a gallon is divisible in human unit. A quart is a quarter or a gallon, a pint is half that. 250ml is both exotic sounding and guaranteed not as exact when measured in halves.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  >Because a gallon is divisible in human unit. And the litre isn't? Sorry, I fail to see your argument here.
- dirktheman 6y ago
  And why would a quarter of a gallon be more convenient or 'divisible in human unit' than a quarter of a liter...? Say, I walk into a bar. I order a beer. Here (in The Netherlands), since I didn't specify, I get a small beer of whatever's on tap. A small beer is 250ml-350ml, depending on the establishment. I could also order a half liter (500ml) or ask for a pitcher. So, just as in the US you don't order "can I have 128 fluid ounces of beer" you don't order "250ml of beer" in the rest of the world. Also, the fact that it 'sounds exotic' says more about you than about the system... and 'guaranteed not as exact'? Really? Let's say you have to measure a gallon of water, and I have to measure a liter. I just whip out a digital kitchen scale and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters. Cause, you know, metric units are interchangeable. I double dare you to come up with a more exact measurement in Imperial units using simple kitchen tools.
  - avar 6y ago
    > In The Netherlands [...] a small beer of whatever's on tap [...] is 250ml-350ml Traveler beware: Just because it's true that a Dutch "vaasje" glass is 230-330ml[1] the actual volume of beer you get is at best 80% of that. The Dutch pouring practice of handing patrons a glass of beer with up to 1/4 receding foam on the top would cause a riot across the channel. > [...]and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters[...] No, not exactly. Not even under standard conditions. It's one of the unfortunate warts of the modern metric system that the actual value drifted from exactly 1000, almost, but not exactly[2]. 1. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaasje https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaasje 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density#Water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density#Water

tsimionescu 6y ago

You've never left the US, have you? No one uses 3.8 liters of gas, they obviously use 1 liter of gas, or 10 liters of gas. Most cars have about 40 or 50 liter tanks, and gas is paid by the liter. Juice is also bought by the liter, usually in 2L bottles for a family dinner, or 500mL bottles for one person alone.

axaxs 6y ago
I've been all over the world. Don't make assumptions based on your own argument.
- sho 6y ago
  Well you sort of betrayed yourself imagining all those hapless foreigners, struggling to fill their cars in multiples of 3.8L .. In most countries you could go your whole life without having to know what a "gallon" is or even hearing the word.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  And have you seen anywhere people using 3.8l or 0.334 meters or 12.5cm as common measurements? Or in general, people having problems with expressing quantities in simple multiples or fractions of liters, (kilo)grams, and meters? I do understand that it is hard to adjust intuitions from one system to the other, but I can't imagine how someone can think that people have problems using the measurement system they learned in primary school.
roywashere 6y ago
2l is very large in my (Dutch) idea. Orange juice in my country is typically sold in 1l cartons and more recently also 1.5l. But the latter only for the most popular flavors. The same is true for milk.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  I think I should have soda 'soda', not 'juice'. Here in Romania, things like orange juice and milk are also usually sold in 1l bottles. It's things like Coca Cola and Fanta that are typically sold in either 0.5l or 2l bottles (even 2.5l around holidays; but 1.5l is also becoming increasingly common).

kevindong 6y ago

The US system's main strength is that there are a bunch of human-scale subunits (gallon, pint, cup, etc.). However, the issue is that there's a lot of those subunits (some useful, some not). Converting between the units is a pain: not because the conversion is hard (the conversion ratios are usually whole numbers), but rather because there's a lot of units and it's difficult to remember how they relate to each other (e.g. what's the relation between a pint and a gallon?).

oblio 6y ago
Why is the gallon a "human sized unit"? What does it even represent? A hat size?
- DanBC 6y ago
  And it's weird to call a unit "human sized" when there are different versions of it. A US gallon is 3.785 litres. A UK gallon is 4.546 litres. Which if these is more human-sized?
  - Bayart 6y ago
    >Which if these is more human-sized? The US gallon since they've got more people per capita.
- kevindong 6y ago
  It's a useful quantity because the variety of units allow for the speaker to drop the numerical portion of a quantity of a substance. Meaning, the phrase "gallon of milk" is ever so slightly easier to say/verbalize than "four liters of milk." Or alternatively, "half gallon of milk" vs "two liters of milk." Likewise: "pint of beer" vs. "<half liter/5 deciliters> of beer", "1 cup of flour" vs. "<quarter liter/250 mL/25 centiliters/120 grams> of flour".
  - eythian 6y ago
    But you're not saying "four litres of milk" that often. You're saying "a carton of milk" and typically the people understand that that is a litre or 1.5l or whatever it is you usually buy. As for beer, again, where I drink it's typically either unspecified or a "small", being 25cl and 15cl respectively (this being a nerdy craft beer bar where smaller sizes are preferred.) If you do want to say the size, you can just say 25 or 15, no one is going to think you want 15 litres because that'd be weird.

realusername 6y ago

> A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters Most people in the world just buy their petrol per liter directly and it's priced at <currency amount> / liter, there is no conversion needed, the "gallon" is just an arbitrary measure.

rimliu 6y ago
And we do not measure fuel consumption in "miles per gallon" , but "liters per 100km".
- jaclaz 6y ago
  >And we do not measure fuel consumption in "miles per gallon" , but "liters per 100km". Actually that is the "official" way of measurement (what you see on the car specifications or what the on board computer tells you), in speaking it is more common to say that you made 22 Km/liter (or 18, etc.) than to say you used 4.55 liters/100 Km (or 5.56 liters/100 Km).
  - avar 6y ago
    I've never heard anyone say that. Who are these people that are reading fuel consumption in their dashboard and doing the mental arithmetic to convert that to km/liter? I've only heard "my car spends about 5-8", meaning 5-8 l/100 km in casual conversation. I.e. the number you'd read directly from the dashboard.
    - jaclaz 6y ago
      Well, maybe it is just local, but before you had liters per 100 km or actually a dashboard at all (not so many year ago) all you had was a lousy analogic something with a hand that went from F to E and the only way to calculate (approximately) fuel consumption was to know how many liters you put on the refill and have the km since last refill. So you had (say) 30 liters needed to refill and travelled for 450 Km, now is it easier to divide 30 by 450 and multiply by 100 ( or divide 30 by 4.5) or divide 450 by 30? Besides the difference between (say) 18 and 19 Km/l is (IMHO) easier to visualize/appreciate than the difference between 5.56 and 5.26 l/100 km.

alkonaut 6y ago

> A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters I'm pretty sure this is an attempt at humor. Or I'm not sure but I hope.

avar 6y ago

> As a gearhead, I absolutely hate the metric/standard difference. To take the example of the F150 there's a 26 gallon fuel tank, but then the engine size in in liters, transmission fluid is in quarts, windshield washer reservoir in liters etc. Even on the most popular American-made car in the US you need to deal with an absolute mess of different measurement systems, on e.g. a German-made car all of these would be metric.

vinay427 6y ago
This is still better than tires, where the diameter seems to be listed in inches around the world even though other measurements such as the width are usually in millimeters everywhere.
- avar 6y ago
  Tires are their own special measurement hell. A 17 inch tire does not have a diameter of 17 inches. Those 17 inches are the diameter of the rim it's supposed to sit on[1]. Thus e.g. a 245/45 R17 tire has a diameter of around 26 inches. As you can deduct from the "simple" formula of: 245/10*45/100/2.54*2+17 =~ 25.7 I.e. the width is 245mm, the cross section of the tire is 45% of that, or ~110mm, multiply that by 2 and add the 17 inches and you've got the outer tire diameter. 1. https://www.moderntiredealer.com/8644/understanding-tire-dimensions https://www.moderntiredealer.com/8644/understanding-tire-dim...

perilunar 6y ago

A gallon of gas is 3.785 L in the US. In the rest of the British Empire it was 4.546 L. It definitely was not easier back when both gallons were in common use. And by "pint of beer", do you mean an Imperial pint (568 mL) or a US liquid pint (473 mL)?

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