Reply to: Anyone know what mains gas costs per cubic metre ?

[NickFitz]

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

Wrong - it took over 23 months:

bunch of stuff...

[sillysauce]

ummm...

dear Milan, i feel that you're being unfairly persecuted here...BrowneIssue is being unreasonably pedantic. there is ofcourse a legitimate difference between square metres and metres squared, elegantly explained here:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58423.html
however, type "3 metres cubed" into Google and its automatic calculator function will give you 3 (metres cubed) = 3 m3. so the assumption is that the English expression "3 metres cubed" is shorthand for 3 m3, not 27 m3.
if you don't believe that Google is the foremost authority on all things, then refer to WolframAlpha, the mathematical search engine par excellence:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+metres+cubed
WolframAlpha also interprets "3 metres cubed" as 3 m3.
try the same with "3 metres square"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+metres+square
and it yields "3 x meter2" not 9 m2.

moreover, as Milan points out, European languages often work that way as well. i can't speak for Czech, but in French for instance, you would say "3 mètres carres" and "3 mètres cube"; you would never say "3 carres metres", grammatically that just doesn't make any sense.
hence, a Francophone would probably tend to say "3 metres cubed" and "3 metres square" in English.
so give the man a break!

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

"50 metres square for a floor area" - 'we' don't say that. One says "50 square metres".

Equally "3 cubic metres".

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

"3 metres cubed" is - in English - "27 cubic metres".

"50 metres square" might, at a push, mean an area of 50 square metres that just happens to also be square in shape, i.e about 7.071 metres along each side.

"square" and "cubic" are adjectives. "Squared and "cubed" are past tense verbs. They have different meanings.


I don't suppose that helps at all, does it?

[TimberWolf]

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

Mathematics too. I don’t know of any languages other than natural ones (e.g. English) where operator precedence is multiplication followed by exponentiation i.e. "3 meters squared" means (3 * 1 metre)^2 rather than 3 * (1 metre ^2).

To avoid ambiguity when not using standard units it may be better to say a square 3m wide.

[sasguru]

give it up milan.

[milanbenes]

I guess i've lived with all these europeans too long and construct my sentences like them

Milan.

[BrowneIssue]

So please explain how we commonly say...

50 metres square for a floor area

then why not 3 metres cubed for a measurement of gas ?

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

"50 metres square for a floor area" - 'we' don't say that. One says "50 square metres".

Equally "3 cubic metres".

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

"3 metres cubed" is - in English - "27 cubic metres".

"50 metres square" might, at a push, mean an area of 50 square metres that just happens to also be square in shape, i.e about 7.071 metres along each side.

"square" and "cubic" are adjectives. "Squared and "cubed" are past tense verbs. They have different meanings.


I don't suppose that helps at all, does it?

[milanbenes]

less of it


Milan.

[BrowneIssue]

milan whatever you do for a living, it can't be very demanding intellectually.

[TimberWolf]

My auto correct is set for that annoying illiterate country

I've read so many American textbooks (well a few) that I now use meters and metres interchangeably. And litres/liters. Has anyone a copy of the OED to see what it says about American spellings? How about color and gray?

[sasguru]

milan whatever you do for a living, it can't be very demanding intellectually.

[milanbenes]

Timberwolf, excellent analysis thank you.

You said 47.65p in the uk per metre cubed.

Where I am (CZ) it seems according to RWE that the price is +/- 35p/m3

So big panic is over gas bill will be ok considering how much we use etc.

Brownstuff, you said:

Sorry to be pedantic, but both of these errors bug me.

a) 2 metres cubed is 8 cubic metres.

b) A meter is a measuring device, except in that big country that doesn't acknowledge metric where they insist on spelling everything wrongly.



So please explain how we commonly say...

50 metres square for a floor area

then why not 3 metres cubed for a measurement of gas ?

Answers on a postcard please.

Ta,

Milan.

[Diver]

cubic metres

Sorry to be pedantic, but both of these errors bug me.

a) 2 metres cubed is 8 cubic metres.

b) A meter is a measuring device, except in that big country that doesn't acknowledge metric where they insist on spelling everything wrongly.

My auto correct is set for that annoying illiterate country

[shoes]

It's cheaper to purchase your gas in units of metres sphered rather than metres cubed because they fit down the cylindrical pipes better.

[TimberWolf]

PowerGen

33 units =1062 kWh
each kWh = 3.081p plus 5% VAT

Each unit is 1 hcf (WTF an hcf is, I don't know. <something> cubic feet?).

1 unit = 2.83 cubic metres.

It looks like hcf = 'hundreds of cubic feet'. To convert to m^3 multiply by 2.83, as you say. My meter is pretty modern, so yes there’s no guarantee that gas units are all metric or standard, in line with every other damn imperial measurement, especially volumes.

[BrowneIssue]

PowerGen

33 units =1062 kWh
each kWh = 3.081p plus 5% VAT

Each unit is 1 hcf (WTF an hcf is, I don't know. <something> cubic feet?).

1 unit = 2.83 cubic metres.