4 ms·

I would imagine most Americans on this website are capable of comprehending liters.

glenjamin 2y ago
Are you suggesting that most americans have a good grasp of how much water a cubic mile is? Surely the standard unit for this sort of thing is multiples of well known large lakes or seas?
- dgfitz 2y ago
  A cubic mile isn't a widely-used measurement of volume. Everyone knows what a 2-liter of soda looks like.
  - driggs 2y ago
    But everyone knows how long a mile is, and can imagine a cube one mile long one mile wide and one mile high. Though we can't truly grasp the scale, we can at least understand the magnitude of a value of ~ten million. But quoting a value of 4.4 x 10^19 liters is meaningless for most people. "Of course, that's 22,000,000,000,000,000,000 two-liter soda bottles!" So cubic miles seems like a reasonable unit for this pop-science article, despite the fact that you likely wouldn't use it in a published journal article.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      > But everyone knows how long a mile is Yeah. Long. I doubt most people can eyeball something in the distance and say with accuracy "yeah that is about a mile away" because a mile is really long and people are bad at estimating things. Now do it for 10 miles. A relatable example like someone has mentioned "its about 10 dead seas worth" would have been a better play.
      - tshaddox 2y ago
        I’d guess a lot of Americans can look at a globe and eyeball 100 miles or 1,000 miles. At least American adults with a lot of driving experience. When you get into the millions of cubic miles of water, I think the best way to visualize it is a cube sitting next to the globe.
- huygens6363 2y ago
  I refuse to acknowledge anything but multiples of Libraries of Congress.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I think I'm going to need a conversion to bald eagle volumes, or square hamburger-feet.
    - jvanderbot 2y ago
      This is liquid: Cans of Coke or Coors are standard units (CCC) In this case, 1.48 * 10^20 CCC
- marcellus23 2y ago
  Just picture how long a mile is, and then imagine a cube where each side is that long.
tshaddox 2y ago
I'm an American, and I like to think that I can comprehend liters, but I think for enormous volumes like this it's easier to visualize distances cubed. Like for a million cubic miles, I know that's a cube with 1,000 mile sides. That's like New York to Miami (don't ask me about cities in Europe...okay I'll go out on a limb: Paris to Rome?). I can visualize that cube of water on a globe. But how many liters or gallons is that? A lot! But billions? Trillions? I probably would instinctively say billions, but with a tiny bit of mental arithmetic I'm suspecting it's up in the trillions. edit: I came back to confess that indeed I am an ignorant American who has no intuitive sense of exaliters. My SI volume comfort zone doesn't extend much past teraliters.

Are you suggesting that most americans have a good grasp of how much water a cubic mile is? Surely the standard unit for this sort of thing is multiples of well known large lakes or seas?

dgfitz 2y ago
A cubic mile isn't a widely-used measurement of volume. Everyone knows what a 2-liter of soda looks like.
- driggs 2y ago
  But everyone knows how long a mile is, and can imagine a cube one mile long one mile wide and one mile high. Though we can't truly grasp the scale, we can at least understand the magnitude of a value of ~ten million. But quoting a value of 4.4 x 10^19 liters is meaningless for most people. "Of course, that's 22,000,000,000,000,000,000 two-liter soda bottles!" So cubic miles seems like a reasonable unit for this pop-science article, despite the fact that you likely wouldn't use it in a published journal article.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    > But everyone knows how long a mile is Yeah. Long. I doubt most people can eyeball something in the distance and say with accuracy "yeah that is about a mile away" because a mile is really long and people are bad at estimating things. Now do it for 10 miles. A relatable example like someone has mentioned "its about 10 dead seas worth" would have been a better play.
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      I’d guess a lot of Americans can look at a globe and eyeball 100 miles or 1,000 miles. At least American adults with a lot of driving experience. When you get into the millions of cubic miles of water, I think the best way to visualize it is a cube sitting next to the globe.
huygens6363 2y ago
I refuse to acknowledge anything but multiples of Libraries of Congress.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I think I'm going to need a conversion to bald eagle volumes, or square hamburger-feet.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    This is liquid: Cans of Coke or Coors are standard units (CCC) In this case, 1.48 * 10^20 CCC
marcellus23 2y ago
Just picture how long a mile is, and then imagine a cube where each side is that long.

tshaddox 2y ago

I'm an American, and I like to think that I can comprehend liters, but I think for enormous volumes like this it's easier to visualize distances cubed. Like for a million cubic miles, I know that's a cube with 1,000 mile sides. That's like New York to Miami (don't ask me about cities in Europe...okay I'll go out on a limb: Paris to Rome?). I can visualize that cube of water on a globe. But how many liters or gallons is that? A lot! But billions? Trillions? I probably would instinctively say billions, but with a tiny bit of mental arithmetic I'm suspecting it's up in the trillions. edit: I came back to confess that indeed I am an ignorant American who has no intuitive sense of exaliters. My SI volume comfort zone doesn't extend much past teraliters.