Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What’s the reason for measuring everything by volume?

  • DaDragon@kbin.social
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    3 months ago

    I’ll nitpick that said definition is also arbitrary. Why is it 1l of water at sea level, and not molecular weight of the water? And why a Liter anyway.

    Even metric units like time are somewhat arbitrary. Why is a second based on caesium frequency, and not some other element?

    • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ll nitpick that said definition is also arbitrary. Why is it 1l of water at sea level, and not molecular weight of the water? And why a Liter anyway.

      Why? Because 1L is 1000 Cubic centimeters, which takes 1000 calories to raise 100 degrees to boiling point.

      Nothing is arbitrary with metric, everything is also directly related to every other measurement.