Gallon to Liter Conversion Incorrect

mdesson

Open Kagi
Search: 9 gallons to liters

Actual Result:
= 40.914828 Liter

Expected Result:
= 34.0687 Liter

eirk

Seems to depend on region. most regions have this issue, except (fwik) usa

some regions, incl afghanistan, azerbaijan produces about 34.1

deafmute1

40.91 is the correct conversion in imperial gallons, 34.1 is the correct in US gallons. Wolfram Alpha seems to be selecting gallon type based on locale. Given imperial gallons are hardly in use any more, as all countries that used it have metricized, it seems an odd choice - I'm Australian, a former imperial gallon country, and I get 40.91 too. But if I'm ever converting gallons to liters, its because I'm converting from a measurement used in a US context, as they are the only people to use gallons.

this issue may persist across all ambiguous imperial units, which would make all conversions suspect.

eirk

I suppose it's related to https://kagifeedback.org/d/3926-display-wolfram-input-interpretation/6 then
Wolfram Alpha is providing a correct answer, but without telling us what it is interpreting, the result is confusing

mdesson

Thanks for the replies, that makes a lot of sense. Odd for Wolfram Alpha to default to it in the Canadian locale, since we semi-regularly run across specifically American units.

I wonder if there's a way to return a little more detail on the units, which would at least help.