this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 253 points 1 week ago (79 children)

May I present to you, how to measure like a Brit

Flow chart showing the uses for metric and imperial in the UK

It's great fun especially when you're trying to work out how fuel efficient your car has been when your tank and fuel pump is in litres and the fuel efficiency is in miles per gallon.

Oh and you'll have a jolly time following a recipe from more than 20 years ago trying to remember what the hell "Gas Mark 4" is in centigrade for fan or convection ovens.

Oh and my personal favourite for the industry I'm in: when designing a PCB your component sizes will use imperial codes, your wire diameters will be in AWG, your track widths and PCB dimensions will be in millimetres, but your copper thicknesses will be in ounces despite the final weight for the assembly will be in grams.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Since volume is equivalent to metres cubed and distance is equivalent to metres (both multiplied by some conversion coefficient), I think fuel efficiency should be measured in metres squared, because why not.

[–] purplemonkeymad 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is a correct unit for it. Why? Think of it like a tube where as you move along it you use up the fuel. Over a set distance you would use more in a lower efficiency vehicle. Since the length of that pipe is the same, then the change would be the area of the ends of the pipe. Thus fuel efficiency is an area, smaller is better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/

(Yes, the "bird poop" one is correct, it does talk about fuel consumption too).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I mean, you are correct in that there is an actual physical interpretation for it

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