On Sunday 27 January 2008 20:37, Ziser, Jesse wrote: > I'd like to offer another possible example of violation of the rule of > thousands. I keep seeing L/100 km in fuel efficiency contexts. I also > occasionally see km/L but it appears to be rarer. km/L is clearly more > "thousandy", and also has the debatable advantage of being "distance per > volume" just like MPG. Besides, "L/100 km" seems an awkward mouthful. Is > this really the preferred unit? > > I'm thinking about getting metric mileage bumper stickers for my friends > and family (most of whom I'm sure would enthusiastically accept and display > them) and I was wondering if anyone had any other opinions on the km/L > versus L/100 km issue. I've been unable to find much about it online.
At least two of us agreed, the last time this came up, that the unit of fuel consumption should be the liter per megameter, or microliter per meter (or cubic millimeter per meter if you wish to avoid "liter"). As to methods of averaging, the harmonic mean is a bit more abstruse than the arithmetic mean, but it comes up all the time in electric circuits. Every little kid should know some reciprocals and be able to estimate a harmonic mean. Pierre
