Mega Cubic Meter

Stu Pocknee

14 Aug 2023

dirt

A question arose recently in the Facebook group 'laser buckets of Australia'.

"How many cubic meter are a Mega cubic meter?"

Fair question. There was some confused answering. Somehow Megaliters also managed to enter the chat.

The two answer candidates were:

1. One million cubic meters [ 1 x 10⁶ m³]
2. One quintillion cubic meters [ 1 x 10¹⁸ m³].

Slight difference. 😆

I think the source of the confusion is pretty clear. It is in the order of the used prefixes "cubic" and "mega".

The answer you get will depend on which of the following volumes you think Pierre was referring to:

1. a mega cubic meter, or
2. a cubic mega meter.

Pierre asked for the first, however it is possible that a non-native English speaker may have mixed the two up.

To quote Wikipedia, "Mega" is a unit prefix in metric systems of units denoting a factor of one million (10⁶ or 1000000).

And from the same source, in arithmetic and algebra, the cube of a number n is its third power, that is, the result of multiplying three instances of n together.

If the first prefix is "Mega" then you have a million of whatever comes next.

If the first prefix is "Cubic" then you have whatever comes next multiplied by itself 3 times.

Take an imaginary length unit, the "pock".

A cubic pock would be the volume enclosed by a cube with an edge length of 1 pock.

1 cubic pock = 1 pock x 1 pock x 1 pock.

If you had a cube with an edge length of 2 pocks, it would enclose a volume of 8 cubic pocks.

8 cubic pocks = 2 pocks x 2 pocks x 2 pocks.

A Megapock will be one million pocks.

1 Megapock = 1,000,000 x 1 pock = 1 million pocks.

Now let's add both prefixes

A cubic Megapock is [one million pocks] multiplied by itself 3 times.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic pocks = 1,000,000 pocks x 1,000,000 pocks x 1,000,000 pocks.

In English, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 is one quintillion.

A Mega cubic pock is one million instances of a single cubic pock.

1,000,000 cubic pocks = 1,000,000 x 1 cubic pock.

In English, 1,000,000 is one million.

Ok, did we get to an answer there? Hopefully.

If Pierre meant what he said (a Mega cubic meter) then this is one million cubic meters.

If he actually meant a cubic Megameter then this is one quintillion cubic meters.

BTW

Because it came up in the posting: 1 Megaliter is a volume equal to 1 million liters, or 1000 cubic meters (10m x 10m x 10m).

On spelling

Liters, litres. Meters, metres. I like American spelling for these. You do you.

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