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.
There really is an xkcd for everything.
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.
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.
Square feet are feet squared.
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
Edit to add, a 600 square foot studio apartment (about 3% of an acre) is much smaller than the 600 foot squared lot that a mcmansion will sit on. (About 9 acres)
I believe “feet squared” and “feet, squared” is the discrepancy here.
The unit ft^2 is pronounced “feet squared” and is equivalent to sq. ft.
The ones in my garden only eat round inches.
deleted by creator
