square metres

[danchip]

can someone please help e settle an argument im having with someone at work

if a floor is 20m x 1m how many M2 is this?

[ChuckFickens]

20M2

20 * 1 = 20

Though thats a very long thin room you have!

[joggerjayne]

Maybe it's a corridor !

[danchip]

i knew that was how you worked it out but 2 lads at work said that was wrong and had me doubting myself, i cant wait to show this to them tomorrow morning

[joggerjayne]

Were they thinking of the conundrum whereby ...

... a room that is 3m long and 3m wide ...

... is 9 square metres

but

... 3 metres square ?

[joggerjayne]

My view of the room that is 1 x 20 is ...

... that it cannot be described as "metres square"

... or anything square

Because the room is demonstrably not square.

[kitesurfer]

It's written as 20 m^2 (that is, with an exponent of 2), but is better
read as "20 square meters" than as "20 meters squared."

The reason for this is as you say, that the latter sounds as if it
means (20 m)^2, the square of 20 meters, rather than 20 (m^2), as it
really is, 20 times one meter squared.

The fact is, however, that you will find both forms used; I think it
is generally agreed that "20 square meters" is better, in order to
avoid that problem, but both are "correct." That is, the problem is
not that "20 meters squared" MEANS the area of a 20-meter square, but
that it can be taken either way, and is thus ambiguous. We simply want
to avoid the ambiguity.

[ChuckFickens]

^ http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57209 .html