Editing 2526: TSP vs TBSP

{{comic
| number    = 2526
| date      = October 8, 2021
| title     = TSP vs TBSP
| image     = tsp_vs_tbsp.png
| titletext = It's like one teraspoon / when all you need is a kilonife
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by ALANIS TURINGETTE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic plays a joke on the common liquid measurements of {{w|teaspoon}}s (tsp) and {{w|tablespoon}}s (tbsp), which are commonly confused. In the US, a teaspoon is defined as 4.9 mL (0.18 imp fl oz; 0.17 US fl oz) while a tablespoon is defined as 14.8 ml (0.50 US fl oz; 3 tsp).

It also plays a joke on metric prefixes (based on powers of 10) versus binary prefixes (based on powers of 2), which are also a common source of confusion (see also [[394: Kilobyte]]). In the International System of Units (SI), T (for ''tera-'') signifies a multiplier of 10<sup>12</sup> (that is, 1&nbsp;000&nbsp;000&nbsp;000&nbsp;000), while Ti (''tebi-'', for ''terabinary''), and not Tb, is an ISO standard binary prefix meaning 2<sup>40</sup> (that is, 1024<sup>4</sup> = 1&nbsp;099&nbsp;511&nbsp;627&nbsp;776).

If "spoon" is understood as US teaspoon, then one teraspoon will be 4&nbsp;928&nbsp;922 cubic meters (1.302 billion US gallons or 3996 acre-feet) and a binary teraspoon will be 5&nbsp;419&nbsp;407 cubic meters (1.432 B gal or 4394 acre-ft). If the US tablespoon is taken as base unit, a teraspoon will be 14&nbsp;786&nbsp;765 cubic meters and a binary teraspoon 16&nbsp;258&nbsp;220 cubic meters – roughly equivalent to six thousand Olympic-size swimming pools or slightly more than six times the volume of the Pyramid of Giza. All these units have fairly limited uses in cooking.{{Citation needed}} 

The title text is a play on a lyric from the Alanis Morissette song "{{w|Ironic (song)|Ironic}}": "It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife." Randall changes the line to "teraspoon" and "kilonife". The "kilonife" comes from ''knife'' being interpreted as "nife" with a ''k'' prefix – ''k'' being the SI symbol for ''kilo-'' –, in a similar vein as taking ''tsp'' for "teraspoon". "Nife" is a geophysical name for Earth's core, thought to be composed of nickel and iron, and hence the word comes from the chemical symbols Ni (nickel) and Fe (iron).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Cooking tips: tsp vs tbsp

:[left column:]
:<big>Tsp</big>
:Teraspoon 
:1,000,000,000,000 
:(10<sup>12</sup>) spoons

:[right column:]
:<big>Tbsp</big>
:Binary tsp 
:1,099,511,627,776 
:(1024<sup>4</sup>) spoons

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Food]]