I bearing in mind tried to construct a custom-sized aquarium calculator litres for a utterly 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 no question 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, wondering, "Wait, how to determine litres from centimeters?" It felt in the manner of I was grating to solve a riddle posed by some ancient math-obsessed sphinx.

Calculations are annoying. They just are. We bring to life 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 rave review in the form of arithmetic. If you have ever felt physically ill-treated by the sight of a measuring tape, you are in the right place. Lets fracture down the logic of liquid volume without making your brain leak out of your ears.

Before we get into the "how," lets talk not quite the "why." Why get we use centimeters at all? Why not inches? Or cubits? Or the length of a medium-sized banana? Centimeters are glorious because they belong to the metric system. The metric system is a neat, tidy room where everything fits into boxes of ten. It is the Marie Kondo of measurement systems.