WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 If I asked you to picture exactly one ton of 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:06.700 pure water, you would probably struggle. Oh, 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:09.240 for sure. It's a huge amount. Right. But if I 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.039 asked you to picture a standard household washing 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:13.560 machine, you've just visualized the invisible 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:17.280 master key to global shipping, modern medicine, 00:00:18.219 --> 00:00:21.050 and like planetary engineering. Yeah, today we 00:00:21.050 --> 00:00:23.609 are looking at the cubic meter. Which I know 00:00:23.609 --> 00:00:25.609 it sounds like a dusty chalkboard concept from 00:00:25.609 --> 00:00:28.050 high school geometry. Definitely. Yeah. But it 00:00:28.050 --> 00:00:30.190 is actually the silent architecture of the modern 00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:32.609 world. It really is. And, you know, our mission 00:00:32.609 --> 00:00:35.590 today is to do a deep dive into the source material 00:00:35.590 --> 00:00:38.829 we have on this, because it is the perfect lens 00:00:38.829 --> 00:00:42.030 for looking at how humans constantly try to impose 00:00:42.030 --> 00:00:45.149 pure mathematical order onto a physical world 00:00:45.149 --> 00:00:48.560 that is inherently messy. messy, chaotic, and 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.539 very stubborn. Okay, let's unpack this. Because 00:00:51.539 --> 00:00:53.299 before we can talk about what goes inside this 00:00:53.299 --> 00:00:55.500 space, we have to look at how we define the empty 00:00:55.500 --> 00:00:57.700 space itself. Right, the actual dimension. Yeah. 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:00.380 If I'm looking at this volume, it's a cube with 00:01:00.380 --> 00:01:03.579 edges exactly one meter long. An SI derived unit 00:01:03.579 --> 00:01:05.989 of volume. Its symbol is um with a little three. 00:01:06.170 --> 00:01:09.609 The standard MK. Exactly. But immediately we 00:01:09.609 --> 00:01:11.790 run into this weird contradiction in the sources. 00:01:12.409 --> 00:01:14.849 The metric system was designed to be this flawless 00:01:14.849 --> 00:01:17.129 universal language, right? The whole point of 00:01:17.129 --> 00:01:19.090 it, yeah. Yet there are all these alternative 00:01:19.090 --> 00:01:21.590 aliases floating around for this exact same box. 00:01:21.629 --> 00:01:24.109 Oh, absolutely. Like why are foresters measuring 00:01:24.109 --> 00:01:27.469 wood in stairs? Or why are logistics managers 00:01:27.469 --> 00:01:30.870 at FedEx charging freight by the CBM? If the 00:01:30.870 --> 00:01:33.049 math is universal, why isn't the name? Well, 00:01:33.069 --> 00:01:35.680 what's fascinating here is that language always 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:38.640 bends to human utility no matter how rigid the 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.560 science is. How do you mean? So the cubic meter 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:45.040 is mathematically flawless, right, but a lumberjack 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:48.180 isn't dealing with pure geometry. When you chop 00:01:48.180 --> 00:01:50.920 down a tree and stack the wood, there is air 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.480 between the logs. It's not perfectly flush. Oh, 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:56.000 right, because branches and uneven bark. Exactly. 00:01:56.500 --> 00:01:59.040 So a stair historically referred to that specific 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:01.859 practical volume of stacked timber. It survives 00:02:01.859 --> 00:02:04.480 as this linguistic fossil because the forestry 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.040 industry needs a word that implies a cubic meter 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:09.639 of something uneven. Something real. Yeah, rather 00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:12.560 than a sterile theoretical void. So the environment 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:15.780 literally forces the language to adapt. And we 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.120 see the exact same thing in modern logistics. 00:02:18.580 --> 00:02:20.620 When you are managing a global supply chain, 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:23.879 typing out cubic meter on thousands of commercial 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:26.659 manifests is wildly inefficient. It takes too 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:28.900 long. Way too long. So the shipping industry 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:32.259 adopted the acronym CBM. Which is just cubic 00:02:32.259 --> 00:02:35.610 meter, but faster. Right. The underlying space 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:38.849 hasn't changed a single millimeter, but the label 00:02:38.849 --> 00:02:41.689 shifts because a dock worker interacts with that 00:02:41.689 --> 00:02:44.169 space very differently than a mathematician does. 00:02:44.349 --> 00:02:46.949 That makes total sense. And that tension between 00:02:46.949 --> 00:02:51.129 pure math and gritty reality is a thread we are 00:02:51.129 --> 00:02:53.659 going to see a lot today. Oh, absolutely. We 00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:55.599 have our washing machine sized box. We know what 00:02:55.599 --> 00:02:58.060 the dock workers call it. But things get really 00:02:58.060 --> 00:03:00.240 wild when we bridge the gap between abstract 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:03.659 geometry and physical mass. Specifically by filling 00:03:03.659 --> 00:03:06.780 that space with water. Right. Because water is 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:08.620 the ultimate benchmark. If you fill that one 00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:11.379 by one by one meter box with pure water, it holds 00:03:11.379 --> 00:03:13.939 exactly one thousand liters. One thousand liters. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:15.460 And to visualize that, don't just think about 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:17.659 the liquid. Think about the crushing weight of 00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:20.379 it. The mass is staggering. Totally. In U .S. 00:03:20.539 --> 00:03:22.520 terms, you're talking about packing over two 00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:26.419 hundred and into the footprint of a home appliance. 00:03:27.419 --> 00:03:30.259 Or 220 imperial gallons. Which is incredibly 00:03:30.259 --> 00:03:35.419 dense. Imagine stacking 264 heavy plastic milk 00:03:35.419 --> 00:03:38.060 jugs in your kitchen, all confined to that one 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.479 small square. Or for other visual conversions, 00:03:40.699 --> 00:03:43.960 the sources note it's roughly 35 .3 cubic feet, 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:48.699 or 1 .3 cubic yards, or about 6 .29 standard 00:03:48.699 --> 00:03:51.639 oil barrels. That's a lot of oil. But going back 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:53.740 to water, the physics are just beautifully specific 00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:56.800 here. That cubic meter of pure water has a mass 00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:00.240 of exactly 1 ,000 kilograms. One metric ton. 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:02.900 One ton. But, and this is a crucial caveat from 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:04.840 the source material, it only hits that perfect 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:06.879 one ton mark under very specific conditions. 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:09.060 Right, when the water is at its maximum density. 00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:12.180 Which happens at exactly 3 .983 degrees Celsius. 00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:14.539 And it has to be under standard atmospheric pressure. 00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:18.079 Which is about 101 .325 kilopascals. Basically 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:19.740 just the normal air pressure you feel standing 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:21.800 at sea level on a regular afternoon. Correct. 00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:24.379 Under those exact conditions, the density is 00:04:24.379 --> 00:04:27.199 one megagram per cubic meter. Which is just a 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:29.579 deeply satisfying, perfectly round number. It 00:04:29.579 --> 00:04:32.480 is, but nature doesn't really care about satisfying 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:35.529 numbers. No, it does not. Because if you drop 00:04:35.529 --> 00:04:37.430 the temperature in the room just a few degrees 00:04:37.430 --> 00:04:40.329 down to zero Celsius. The freezing point of water. 00:04:40.629 --> 00:04:43.670 Exactly. The mass inside that exact same geometric 00:04:43.670 --> 00:04:48.949 box changes. It drops to 999 .85 kilograms. The 00:04:48.949 --> 00:04:51.170 physical space didn't shrink at all. Right. The 00:04:51.170 --> 00:04:53.550 box is the same, but the density of the universe 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:55.689 inside it did. It proves that the environment 00:04:55.689 --> 00:04:58.189 always dictates the math. You cannot separate 00:04:58.189 --> 00:05:01.209 the geometry from the physical world it exists 00:05:01.209 --> 00:05:03.189 in. And speaking of the physical world ruining 00:05:03.189 --> 00:05:05.170 the math, here's where it gets really interesting. 00:05:05.329 --> 00:05:07.930 The anomaly. Yes. I want to talk about the great 00:05:07.930 --> 00:05:11.769 leader anomaly. From 1901 all the way to 1964, 00:05:12.569 --> 00:05:15.180 the scientific community just doored. They broke 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:17.259 the definition of a liter. They did. Instead 00:05:17.259 --> 00:05:19.259 of keeping it tied perfectly to the geometry 00:05:19.259 --> 00:05:21.519 of the cubic meter, they redefined the liter 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:24.420 as the volume of one kilogram of pure water at 00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:28.199 four degrees Celsius and 760 millimeters of mercury 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:30.560 pressure. Which at the time probably seemed like 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:33.540 a very pragmatic decision. Well, they were anchoring 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:36.319 the volume to a tangible physical constant that 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:38.779 they could actually weigh on a scale. Wait, I 00:05:38.779 --> 00:05:40.959 have to push back on this. OK, go ahead. By doing 00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:44.100 that, they shattered the beautiful base 10 metric 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:48.319 system. For over 60 years, a liter wasn't exactly 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.779 one thousandth of a cubic meter. No, it wasn't. 00:05:50.819 --> 00:05:56.839 It was 1 .000028 cubic decimeters. They created 00:05:56.839 --> 00:06:00.980 this awkward hanging decimal. How does the entire 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:03.639 global scientific community just accept that 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:05.680 their fundamental unit of liquid measurement 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.459 is mathematically broken for six decades? It 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.860 sounds crazy now, sure. Why not fix it the second 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:13.019 they realize the numbers didn't perfectly align? 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:15.290 If we connect this to the bigger picture, you 00:06:15.290 --> 00:06:17.290 have to look at the technological limitations 00:06:17.290 --> 00:06:20.769 of 1901. Back then, measuring a physical kilogram 00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:23.410 of water under strict atmospheric conditions 00:06:23.410 --> 00:06:26.209 was actually more reliable and reproducible than 00:06:26.209 --> 00:06:28.569 trying to manufacture and measure a mathematically 00:06:28.569 --> 00:06:32.129 flawless physical geometric cube. Oh, wow. So 00:06:32.129 --> 00:06:34.050 they couldn't build a perfect box. Exactly. They 00:06:34.050 --> 00:06:35.949 trusted their physical scales more than they 00:06:35.949 --> 00:06:38.350 trusted their rulers. So they anchored the system 00:06:38.350 --> 00:06:41.329 to the physical water. even if it meant the pure 00:06:41.329 --> 00:06:44.829 math had a tiny microscopic limp. It was a necessary 00:06:44.829 --> 00:06:48.629 compromise. But as technology advanced throughout 00:06:48.629 --> 00:06:51.410 the 20th century, that tiny discrepancy, the 00:06:51.410 --> 00:06:55.810 0 .000028. Right. That annoying little decimal. 00:06:56.069 --> 00:06:58.490 It became a nightmare for pure physics and high 00:06:58.490 --> 00:07:01.949 level engineering. By 1964, our ability to measure 00:07:01.949 --> 00:07:05.029 theoretical space had finally surpassed our reliance 00:07:05.029 --> 00:07:07.689 on physical water samples that fluctuate with 00:07:07.689 --> 00:07:11.350 tiny atmospheric changes. So the scientific community 00:07:11.350 --> 00:07:13.709 finally threw their hands up and reverted to 00:07:13.709 --> 00:07:17.389 the original Strictly geometric definition. Yes 00:07:17.389 --> 00:07:19.930 Standardizing the pure math became more important 00:07:19.930 --> 00:07:23.329 than the physical artifact It is a 63 year detour 00:07:23.329 --> 00:07:26.410 in human history all because water is notoriously 00:07:26.410 --> 00:07:28.990 tricky to pin down. It really is Okay, so we've 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.529 established the massive one ton industrial weight 00:07:31.529 --> 00:07:34.170 of this volume But a ton of water isn't exactly 00:07:34.170 --> 00:07:36.490 useful when you're trying to bake a cake or administer 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:39.189 medicine. No, it's a bit much for a recipe. Right. 00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:41.649 So how do we bridge the gap between this massive 00:07:41.649 --> 00:07:43.649 industrial unit and the things you actually hold 00:07:43.649 --> 00:07:45.750 in your hands every day? We have to move into 00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:48.730 the submultiples. We slice the space down. Okay, 00:07:48.769 --> 00:07:51.529 so imagine running a highly precise laser grid 00:07:51.529 --> 00:07:54.230 through our one -meter washing machine block, 00:07:55.069 --> 00:07:58.930 slicing it perfectly into 1 ,000 smaller identical 00:07:58.930 --> 00:08:01.149 cubes. You're now looking at a cubic decimeter. 00:08:01.339 --> 00:08:04.839 The DM cubed. It is exactly one thousandth of 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:07.779 a cubic meter. And practically speaking, it's 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:10.420 a standard one liter water bottle. And just like 00:08:10.420 --> 00:08:12.279 we saw with the forestry and shipping industries 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:16.040 earlier, this specific slice has its own highly 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:18.720 specialized alias. Oh, does it? Yeah. In the 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.199 world of rubber compound processing, they refer 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:25.360 to this exact volume as DCM. DCM. DC cubic meter. 00:08:25.639 --> 00:08:28.120 Rubber processing. It just goes to show how every 00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:30.800 silo of human industry claims a piece of the 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:32.799 metric system for itself. They absolutely do. 00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:34.879 But let's take our laser grid and slice that 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:37.240 one liter bottle down again. A thousand more 00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:39.600 cuts. Now we are holding a cubic centimeter. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.779 One millionth of our original box. This is exactly 00:08:42.779 --> 00:08:45.519 one milliliter. And this is a historically profound 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:47.740 unit. The cubic centimeter was the base unit 00:08:47.740 --> 00:08:51.019 of volume for the CGS system. The centimetergram 00:08:51.019 --> 00:08:54.120 seconds it. Exactly. Before the modern SI system 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.600 took over, CGS was the foundation for early 20th 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.279 century physics, especially when scientists were 00:09:00.279 --> 00:09:02.620 first mapping out electromagnetism. But there 00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:05.659 is a massive psychological quirk here. OK. In 00:09:05.659 --> 00:09:08.820 standard proper SI notation, a cubic centimeter 00:09:08.820 --> 00:09:12.120 is written as CMIB with a superscript 3. Right. 00:09:12.379 --> 00:09:14.580 But nobody actually says that in the real world. 00:09:14.740 --> 00:09:17.740 No, they use colloquialisms like CC or CCM. If 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.240 you are a mechanic checking the engine displacement 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:22.679 on a motorcycle, or if you're watching a medical 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.720 drama and a doctor screams, give me 50 CCs of 00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:27.820 adrenaline. They are talking about cubic centimeter. 00:09:28.139 --> 00:09:31.139 But these abbreviations completely violate SI 00:09:31.139 --> 00:09:34.320 standards. Why do highly trained medical professionals 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:37.600 stubbornly cling to C instead of the scientifically 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.850 accurate CM cubed? This raises an important question 00:09:40.850 --> 00:09:43.570 about human psychology and, well, institutional 00:09:43.570 --> 00:09:46.690 momentum. How so? We built this perfectly logical 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:49.610 base 10 SI system where everything has a clear 00:09:49.610 --> 00:09:52.269 geometric prefix. But in a high stress environment 00:09:52.269 --> 00:09:55.029 like an emergency room, speed and cultural habit 00:09:55.029 --> 00:09:57.409 will always defeat academic purity. Because it's 00:09:57.409 --> 00:10:01.149 faster to say. Exactly. Saying CC is one quick 00:10:01.149 --> 00:10:04.029 syllable repeated. Saying cubic centimeter is 00:10:04.029 --> 00:10:06.250 five syllables. And when you need adrenaline, 00:10:06.750 --> 00:10:09.710 you don't care. about SI compliance. You care 00:10:09.710 --> 00:10:12.980 about efficiency. It is proof that cultural habits 00:10:12.980 --> 00:10:15.480 are far harder to standardize than mathematics. 00:10:15.740 --> 00:10:19.419 The math says CM cubed, but the ER doctor says 00:10:19.419 --> 00:10:22.580 CC, and the doctor wins every time. Every single 00:10:22.580 --> 00:10:24.620 time. And just to take our laser grid to its 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:27.480 absolute limit, if you slice that tiny one CC 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:30.460 block into a thousand microscopic pieces, you 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:32.919 arrive at the cubic millimeter. One billionth 00:10:32.919 --> 00:10:35.240 of our original box. Exactly one microliter. 00:10:35.299 --> 00:10:38.200 A volume barely visible to the naked eye. It's 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:41.059 the domain of genetic sequencing and cell— biology. 00:10:41.379 --> 00:10:44.340 The scale is just dizzying. But if shrinking 00:10:44.340 --> 00:10:46.740 the box takes us down to the microscopic level 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:48.820 of blood cells, what happens when we go the other 00:10:48.820 --> 00:10:51.100 way? When we multiply the box. Yeah, what happens 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:53.100 when we scale it up? This is where we leave the 00:10:53.100 --> 00:10:55.659 human scale entirely and enter the realm of planetary 00:10:55.659 --> 00:10:58.080 engineering. The numbers become almost difficult 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.720 to comprehend. Let's blow it up. A cube with 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:03.639 sides of 10 meters. So picture a three -story 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:06.159 apartment building. That is a cubic decameter. 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:09.860 It holds 1 ,000 cubic meters. One mega liter. 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:13.919 Go bigger. A cube with sides of 100 meters. A 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:16.940 cubic hectometer. This holds one million cubic 00:11:16.940 --> 00:11:19.580 meters, which is equivalent to one gigoliter. 00:11:19.820 --> 00:11:21.779 And notice how the language shifts again to match 00:11:21.779 --> 00:11:24.600 the sheer gravity of the work. Civil engineers 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:27.299 don't typically use the delicate academic term 00:11:27.549 --> 00:11:30.169 cubic hectometer? No. When they are building 00:11:30.169 --> 00:11:33.049 dams or redirecting rivers, they abbreviate it 00:11:33.049 --> 00:11:35.750 as MCM. Million cubic meters. Right. And then 00:11:35.750 --> 00:11:38.860 we reach the Titan. the cubic kilometer. A monstrous 00:11:38.860 --> 00:11:41.460 cube where every single edge is 1 ,000 meters 00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:44.720 long. This holds one billion cubic meters, one 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.279 teraliter. To ground that, in reality, we are 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.460 talking about a volume equivalent to over 810 00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:53.159 ,713 acre feet. Or nearly a quarter of a cubic 00:11:53.159 --> 00:11:56.539 mile. It's roughly .239913 cubic miles, to be 00:11:56.539 --> 00:11:58.700 precise. We are literally measuring entire lakes 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:00.759 and weather systems with this box now. At this 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:02.980 scale, you are managing global resources. You 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:05.399 are dealing with hydrology and atmospheric sciences. 00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:07.500 So what is this all mean. We've gone from blood 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:10.340 cells to entire legs, but why does this specific 00:12:10.340 --> 00:12:12.700 volume matter to you listening to this right 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:15.379 now? Well, there is a statistic from the source 00:12:15.379 --> 00:12:17.840 material regarding the cubic meter that is just 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:21.740 an absolute gut punch. It really is. It visualizes 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:24.799 our species footprint on this planet. A single 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.320 one cubic meter block of concrete. Our washing 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:30.860 machine box again? Yes. That block represents 00:12:30.860 --> 00:12:33.500 the world's annual production of concrete per 00:12:33.500 --> 00:12:35.940 capita. For every single human being on earth. 00:12:36.019 --> 00:12:39.419 Every single one. Let that sink in. Visualize 00:12:39.419 --> 00:12:42.179 yourself standing in your driveway. Now visualize 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:45.519 a solid one meter tall block of concrete right 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:48.879 next to you. Heavy, unmoving concrete. Now visualize 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:50.860 your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. 00:12:51.070 --> 00:12:52.809 Every single one of them standing next to their 00:12:52.809 --> 00:12:55.710 own personal block. Now multiply that by 8 billion 00:12:55.710 --> 00:12:58.529 people. And a brand new block is poured for every 00:12:58.529 --> 00:13:01.250 single one of us every single year. It is a staggering 00:13:01.250 --> 00:13:04.289 visual. And it perfectly explains why engineers 00:13:04.289 --> 00:13:08.620 need shorthand like MCM. When humanity operates 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:11.879 at an infrastructural scale, when we are literally 00:13:11.879 --> 00:13:14.220 terraforming the surface of the earth year after 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:17.200 year, the language has to reflect the industrial 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:20.440 weight of moving that much material. Right. The 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:23.179 sterile prefix of a hectometer just doesn't capture 00:13:23.179 --> 00:13:25.419 the violent effort of pouring a million cubic 00:13:25.419 --> 00:13:27.740 meters of concrete. It's breathtaking when you 00:13:27.740 --> 00:13:29.799 really visualize it. I mean, we started this 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.860 journey looking at an empty, invisible box. A 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:36.220 simple one by one by one cube. We filled it with 00:13:36.220 --> 00:13:40.059 a A crushing ton of water. We explored a 63 -year 00:13:40.059 --> 00:13:42.080 glitch where the world's smartest scientists 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:44.279 broke the laws of math just because water was 00:13:44.279 --> 00:13:46.100 too difficult to measure accurately. We used 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:48.759 a laser grid to slice that volume down into the 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:51.320 liters we drink, the CCs that save lives in hospitals, 00:13:51.559 --> 00:13:53.940 and the microscopic drops used in laboratories. 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:56.340 And then we scaled it up to the size of skyscrapers 00:13:56.340 --> 00:13:58.440 and mountains, ultimately realizing that you, 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:00.860 personally, account for an entire washing machine 00:14:00.860 --> 00:14:03.580 -sized block of new concrete being added to the 00:14:03.580 --> 00:14:06.700 surface of the Earth every 365 days. The cubic 00:14:06.700 --> 00:14:09.039 meter isn't just a unit of measurement, it is 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:11.399 the framework upon which modern civilization 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:14.159 is built. It truly is. And there is one final, 00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:16.659 almost hidden detail about this from the sources 00:14:16.659 --> 00:14:19.500 that perfectly encapsulates its importance. Oh. 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:23.259 What is that? It has to do with how this physical 00:14:23.259 --> 00:14:26.700 space exists in our digital reality. Okay. So 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:29.320 the Unicode Consortium is the organization that 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:32.379 standardizes text, characters, and emojis across 00:14:32.379 --> 00:14:35.379 all computers and smartphones worldwide. Right. 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:37.559 They make sure a smiley face on an iPhone shows 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:40.240 up. There's a smiley face on an Android. Exactly. 00:14:40.620 --> 00:14:43.100 They ensure that a text message sent from a phone 00:14:43.100 --> 00:14:46.120 in Tokyo reads the exact same way on a laptop 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:49.200 in London. And the cubic meter symbol is hard 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:51.840 -coded into our digital language at a very specific 00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:56.299 unicode point. Really? Yes. U plus 33A5. Its 00:14:56.299 --> 00:14:59.480 official name is square M cubed. Wait. It has 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.340 its own dedicated single character in the global 00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:04.659 digital lexicon. It does. It's not an M and then 00:15:04.659 --> 00:15:06.799 a separate three. It's one single character. 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:09.779 leave you with this thought to mull over. Why, 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.179 in an era where digital space is infinitely malleable, 00:15:13.539 --> 00:15:16.519 does humanity need a single hard -coded character 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:19.559 for this specific volume? Why not just ask people 00:15:19.559 --> 00:15:22.440 to type the letter M and the number 3? I mean, 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:24.559 you would think two keystrokes would be perfectly 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:26.899 fine for everyone. You would think so, but it's 00:15:26.899 --> 00:15:29.500 not because the simple geometric volume isn't 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:32.480 just a physical measurement. It is the absolute 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:36.440 foundation of global trade. Wow. It is the baseline 00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:39.559 of international science. It is the core metric 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:42.080 of the logistics that keep human civilization 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:46.759 fed, housed and moving. It is so utterly vital 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:49.480 that it demands its own permanent, unique piece 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:51.860 of real estate on the world's digital. keyboards. 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:54.279 That is just incredible. So the next time you 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:56.659 look at the empty space in your kitchen or watch 00:15:56.659 --> 00:15:58.919 a cargo ship slowly moving across the horizon, 00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:01.059 you'll know exactly what invisible framework 00:16:01.059 --> 00:16:03.440 is holding it all together. The humble cubic 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:05.360 meter. Thank you so much for joining us for this 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:07.600 deep dive into the storage material. Keep questioning 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:09.519 the everyday things around you. And keep looking 00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:12.039 for the hidden stories inside the empty spaces.