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How many Galons in a Galon.

How many Galons in a Galon.

How many Galons in a Galon.

(OP)
Many years ago, all the high schools in Canada taught the wrong conversion factor to convert from Imperial Gallons to U.S. galons. A generation later, (After I had been exposed to enough engineering to know the basis of the correct factor) I was passing an open door in a school and overheard a teacher still teaching the wrong factor. All my text-books in high scool had the wrong factor. I'm wondering if they have it right yet and if this was an issue in any other countries.
respectfully

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

that's why everyone in this world should use metric system! blllttt


*moves out*

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

As I know, it is 1.20095 US gallons (or is it galons) to 1 imperial gallon. We always use the quite easier unit of liters

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

What confuses things further is when people refer to "British" units and then proceed to use US gallons.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

(OP)
Hello Quark;
Yes, I usually round it off to 1.2 (6/5). That's still a lot better than the factor of 1.25 that was taught for generations.
respectfully

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

   There is a lot of stuff like that.  My old handbook shows 69-1/15 English miles to 60 geographical miles.  They did not say which mile was 5280 feet.  Apparently, there are 1089 Scottish acres to 1369 English acres.

   An ale gallon is 282 cubic inches.  A wine gallon is 231 cubic inches.  This is based on the difference between one pound avoirdupois and one pound troy.  In 1826, they set the imperial gallon at 277.274 cubic inches.  My reference was printed in 1835, so stuff may have happened since then.

                          JHG

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

(OP)
For those metric people who may be wondering what this is about, the differeence between a U.S. galon and an Imperial galon is obvious.
The difference between the size of a U.S. ounce and an Imperial ounce is not as obvious.
The ratio that was taught in schools and was found in the high school textbooks was a simple division of the 160 ounces in an Imperial galon by the 128 ounces in a U.S. galon. 4/5 or 5/4
No thought was given that the ounces may also be a different size.

I was wondering if the Canadian school system now has textbooks with the correct conversion factor or is the 128/160 ratio still being taught in high  schools?
respectfully

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Cyril must be kidding.  The meter is too long to measure anything and the centimeter is too short to measure anything.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Is "gallon" spelled with one "L" outside the US?

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

My book says 1.201 Canadian gallon to 1 US gallon.

My book also says that there is a wet US gallon and dry US gallon, and they are different.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Teachers lie. The sooner this is understood the better, so the lies should begin as early as possible. First they said you couldn't take away a bigger number from a smaller one. A few weeks later we were doing it. Then they said you couldn't multiply apples time oranges, only by unit-less numbers. Latter we were multiplying various units together to get still other units. And of course we were told that you couldn't divide by zero, or take the square root of a negative number. By this time I saw the pattern and refused to believe the couldn'ts.

By the way, I believe the oz as unit of force or mass is the same in Imperial and US. It's only the fluid oz unit of volume that differs.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Oh shoot. Correction!!!

Multiply Canadian gallon by 1.201 to get US gallon, wet.

Sorry, can't read.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

You might want to check out the following site (referenced elsewhere, as well by someone else - but I found it yesterday when trying to find a subunit for 'stone').

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/index.html  (great site for units, definitions, etc).

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

[quote=boffintech]Cyril must be kidding.  The meter is too long to measure anything and the centimeter is too short to measure anything.[/quote]

lol you wish smile

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.


A great site for finding conversion factors (even really obscure ones) is www.onlineconversion.com/

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

I agree that's a great site.

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

English units have a charming quality that metric units lack.  It will be a sad day when we can no longer ask someone how many hogsheads are in their butt.

Barry1961

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

The metric system discourages centimetres. Metres and millimetres (and kilometres, nanometres, and any 3rd exponent of 10) are the preferred units.

Meanwhile here in UK, teachers are happily taeching our kids to measure things in centimetres. If we work hard, we could make the metric system almost as obscure as the good old imperial system.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Centimeters are completely legitimate SI units, no more and no less derivative or fundamental than millimeters.  The metric-using country that I lived in used centimeters about as much as we use inches in the US now.  The only people I ever hear talking about how centimeters are not "real" SI units are people who did not grow up with the metric system.

Some USERS of the SI disprefer the prefixes that refer to powers of ten not divisible by 3, but I find no reference on the BIPM site to "preferred prefixes" (though this term is found elsewhere).

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

HgTX:

Of course cms are legitimate - I didn't suggest they were not "real" SI units.  I use centiPoise and hectares like everyone else. But the use of powers of 3 etc. is not just a user preference; it is endorsed by the ISO standard, which is the international standard for use of the metric system, rather than individual nations' systems.

I find DekaNewtons and decimetres and hectolitres confusing, but - hey - that's just me.

You prefer cm - that's OK by me - just don't use inches!

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

ISO is merely a (large) user of the system.  The BIPM is (an aspect of) the creator of the system.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Since this seems to be devolving a bit towards "English vs. Metric", here's a little fuel for the fire...

English units can be divided into decimal fractions as easily as metric units.  Hundredths of an inch, mils, etc.  Just as easily, I'm 1 6/7 meters (or is it metres?) tall.

I rarely need to mix units, so what's the big deal?  I measure things I can hold in my hand in inches, modest distances (like between cities) in miles, and stellar distances in parsecs.

In fact, one might argue that having to convert one mile into 63,360 inches is better at teaching math skills than converting one kilometer into 1,000,000 millimeters.  Yes, the degeneration of math skill in the US is attributable to the metric system!  smile

In the states, a couple decades ago there were "Metric Moment" ads on the Saturday morning cartoons.  I still remember their claim that buying milk by the liter would somehow be cheaper than by the quart.  Apparently they figured stores wouldn't change the price for selling larger containers of milk.

And I'm still waiting for a metric scale to tell my weight properly in Newtons.  (9.8 Newtons = 1 kG at sea level, well, it's *almost* a factor of ten.)

English units (and others) evolved because they had a particular utility, as boffintech alludes to.  I don't see the utility of a measurement based on one ten millionth the distance from the equator to the north pole along the meridian that passes through Greenwich, England.

Incorrect units.  Lying to children.  Horrors!  big smile

Jim  --  mostly kidding

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Schools use cm because they work with small children.

At the age you want to start teaching measurement, lots of kids still have pretty poor coordination so the things they're measuring need to be on the same sort of scale as their hands.

At the same age, they're still pretty new to numbers, so most will have little clue about fractions, and some will still struggle with integers above ten.

If you teach measurement in cm or inches, children can learn the idea of measurement without being distracted by a load of unnecessary practical obstacles.  As their motor and maths skills develop, the leap to mm and m is not all that difficult.

ISO is all very well, but the Sabbath was made for Man, not the other way round.

A.

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

>>>>I don't see the utility of a measurement based on one ten millionth the distance from the equator to the north pole along the meridian that passes through Greenwich, England.<<<

Neither do I. I'd say that that's as daft as basing it on the wavelenghth of light. Oh....

From http://www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/other/cnvint.htm

"At one time, the meter was defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange red line in the spectrum of Krypton-86 which corresponded to the radiation emitted by an electron moving from the orbital

2 p     to the orbital  5 d
   10                      5

in an unperturbed fashion.

However, a scientist proceeded to measure the speed of light by performing an accurate measurement of the ratio between the wavelengths (and/or frequencies) of these two types of radiation. In Zen-like fashion, this convinced those responsible for the standards of the fundamental absurdity of the situation, and so now the definition of the second stands, but the definition of the meter has been replaced; now, the meter derives from the second, through the speed of light, which is, by definition,

               8
2.99792458 * 10

meters per second.

Note that it is more convenient to measure the length of waves of light through interference fringes, and the time between oscillations of radio waves through electrical circuitry, however. So the dual definitions allowed both time and distance to be more accurately defined. Incidentally, as far back as 1927, a definition of the meter in terms of a light wavelength existed, but that definition was based on a line in the spectrum of cadmium"


Hmmm.  I think some people need to get out more...


Rob

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

That's just retrofitting, that's not why the SI is practical.

What is practical is being able to convert ton into kg into g into mg into ?g, in other words convert from extremely heavy to extremely lightweight just by moving the decimal point. And it works not only for weight but also distance and energy for example, and it would have even worked for time if the brilliant ideas from the French revolution (I'm being a little ironic here but anyway) would have been pushed through just a little harder.

All those endless discussions about US and UK gallons, tons, miles and nautical miles and survive a conversion from BTU/minute to horsepower and back...

@jimkirk, why would you want your metric weight to be a round number just because you happen to live on your particular location on this planet where g happens to be around 9.8 m/s2? Think big! smile

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

(OP)
Hello epoisses
I understood that jimkirk was more interested in a weight measuring device calibrated in Newtons rather than kilograms that in the exact 10 to 1 ratio.
respectfully

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

I'm still waiting to see the Metric Clock and Metric Calendar.

NozzleTwister
Houston, Texas

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

Geez, I like the 10-days week idea!! only if I get 4 days off in it, of course blllttt

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How many Galons in a Galon.

My head hurts.

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