Submitted 2 weeks ago by schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de to xkcd@lemmy.world
The biggest I’ve seen in a published source in the wild is an 80-fold error in a reported distance, which I think came from a series of at least three unit conversions and area/length misinterpretations.
People who still use body parts for measurement…
By a square inch, they much mean a column of infinite height extending upwards. Saying they consume the grassy surface of Australia is a dramatic underestimate.
Honestly a special name for area units wouldn’t be awful
Hectare
Same goes for volume. People use cubic meters, but I would prefer to use liters instead.
There really is an xkcd for everything.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Always bothers me that I can’t trust 90% of people (myself included) to properly state area, square feet or feet squared, very different scales.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Square feet are feet squared.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
3 square feet are 3 1x1 feet, 1/3rd of a square yard. 3 feet squared is a square yard, 3x larger than 3 sqft.
Unless I’m missing your sarcasm.
Also the purpose of this xkcd
waz@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
So TIL. I have never heard of this, and I’m not sure if this happens in the U.K… I had always assumed, growing up with feet and inches and metres interchangeably, that area is always stated as the length of the side squared is how it is done. Has this happened as a mis-advertising tactic to make things sound bigger than they are?
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think square feet is popular because many things dealt with aren’t squares, but a square foot is generally small enough to be a good measure, while also large enough to not be an unreasonably large number. When square feet are too small we move to yards (meters), acres, hectares or miles.
A house or apartment isn’t usually square, so how would you apply feet (or meters) squared to it? While a property line might well be equally long on each edge, so you might see it in feet squared, but also that number looks A LOT smaller, so you’ll often see square feet or meters