I in the manner of tried to build a custom-sized aquarium for a completely specific breed of bioluminescent shrimp I bought from a boy in a dark alley. Okay, most likely it wasn't a dark alley, but it was utterly a unreliable Craigslist ad. I had the glass. I had the silicone. I had a ruler that was missing the first three millimeters. What I didnt have was a clue. I kept staring at the glass panels, fish tank gallon calculator wondering, "Wait, how to determine litres from centimeters?" It felt in the same way as I was trying to solve a riddle posed by some ancient math-obsessed sphinx.

Calculations are annoying. They just are. We stimulate in a world where we desire the volume of our coffee mugs and our garden ponds to just magically appear in our heads. But the universe demands praise in the form of arithmetic. If you have ever felt physically angry by the sight of a measuring tape, you are in the right place. Lets rupture all along the logic of liquid volume without making your brain leak out of your ears.

Before we acquire into the "how," lets chat more or less the "why." Why realize we use centimeters at all? Why not inches? Or cubits? Or the length of a medium-sized banana?