Geometry for the Dummy Eighth Grader

Oil drum (cylinder)

The late Emily Litella (aka Gilda Radner) was often forced to say, "Never mind!" when she had a particularly dumbass moment. You know, such as thinking people were talking about necklaces and bracelets when she heard them say "Save Soviet Jewry." Online freelancers rarely if ever do so, leaving the evidence of their obtuseness for all to see; and worse, for the uninitiated to take at face value. For an example, take eHow.com's (yes, them again!) Matthew Anderson writing on "How to Convert Oil Drums to Volume."¹

Matt's problem? He didn't read the question! Matt goes completely off the rails in his very first sentence:

"The oil drum or oil barrel is a unit of measurement that is primarily used by the oil industry in the United States."

The Antisocial Network consulted with our expert in the oil and gas industry, a guy who's spent more than thirty years in the "oil patch." During that time, he's pretty certain he never heard a single reference to the volume of hydrocarbons in "drums." So when Matt informed people that an "oil drum" contains 42 gallons and then lovingly describes how to convert that capacity to U.S. gallons, Imperial gallons, liters, cubic feet and cubic meters; he's providing conversion factors between that 42-gallon barrel and other liquid measures (though he never mentioned that a 42-gallon barrel contains 672 cups, 5,376 ounces, or 0.000129 acre-feet). Why? because instead of all his eloquence about barrels of oil, Matt should have simply written

V = h * π * r²

That's the formula for the volume of a right cylinder, of which an "oil drum" is a classic example. Matt you are definitely a dumbass: our Dumbass of the Day! Note to self: remember that most "oil drums" hold 55 US gallons, not 42...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_6725016_convert-oil-drums-volume.html

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