Part A: Explain why we do not measure the rate at which water flows out through a shower head in cubic meters per second? In your explanation, use reasoning based on appropriate units to model this situation. (5 points)

Part B: What are the two quantities that should be measured to find the rate at which water flows out of a shower head? Explain how the rate can be determined. (5 points)

Question

Part A: Explain why we do not measure the rate at which water flows out through a shower head in cubic meters per second? In your explanation, use reasoning based on appropriate units to model this situation. (5 points)

Part B: What are the two quantities that should be measured to find the rate at which water flows out of a shower head? Explain how the rate can be determined. (5 points)

kainui · Answer

In what sense do you want it to be explained? Why do we use cubic meters per second instead of inches per pound?

kainui · Answer

So if you wanted to measure it, get two things,

a timer
a bucket that you know the volume of

Then you time how long it takes to fill up the bucket, so if you fill up a 2 liter bucket in 2 seconds, it would be

2 liters per 2 seconds, 2 Liters/2seconds which is 1 liter per second. Of course, if you want, you can convert liters to cubic meters, these are all just different names for the same thing, volume. Similarly, minutes, seconds, hours are just time, just different amounts of it.

anonymous · Answer

Ohh okay. Math just isn't very easy for me to understand

kainui · Answer

Nah, that's not true, you're just new to it. It would be like expecting you to pick up a basketball and after playing or a few days feeling bad about yourself because you miss often.

anonymous · Answer

Thanks, I still do not understand exactly how to do that problem...:/ @Kainui

kainui · Answer

Haha, yeah I could have explained it better. I just didn't want to give you the answer right away. I'm a very frustrating person, I hate to admit it. But if you ask me questions I'll answer them a lot better from now on... But I'm not going to give you the answer, if that makes sense. I will help you figure out and understand the answer though.

anonymous · Answer

Of course, I want to learn how to do it, not just get the answer (: That way I know how to do it again in the future. That was the last problem I had to figure out and I just don't understand it..@Kainui

kainui · Answer

Fair enough. I always hesitate when it looks copy/pasted that's all.

kainui · Answer

So for part A, although volume per time is the correct unit for flow, the reason in particular why we don't use cubic meters per second for a shower head is because that's completely ridiculous.

Visualize how large a cubic meter is. That's kind of ridiculous since a bathtub can only hold about a tenth of a cubic meter in the first place! So unless you're planning on filling up about 10 bathtubs PER SECOND, this is an incredibly large measurement to use for a simple little shower head, yeah?

anonymous · Answer

I see, that makes sense

kainui · Answer

And I sort of already explained part B earlier, so I won't reexplain that part unless you have particular questions about how that experiment works or some clarification.

anonymous · Answer

Thank you! I understand it much more now!

kainui · Answer

Cool, glad I could help. =)