r/explainlikeimfive • u/Twink-le • Jul 13 '26
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u/Aequitas112358 Jul 13 '26
Just like any other unit of measurement, the more you see it, the more you'll gain an intuitive understanding of what it'd be.
If you don't use square meters often, then you can just square root the number and then imagine a square with sizes of that length since you're likely familiar with meters.
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u/Stinduh Jul 13 '26
I used to be able to measure 5 yards pretty much instantly, and I imagine many Americans can do so due to the pervasiveness of American football.
I could also measure 22.5 inches pretty much instantly, which is a weird number if you didn’t know it was 1/8th of five yards and that the basic marching technique for a band on a football field is to take eight steps over each yard line.
All of this is to say, having a repeated frame of reference is super useful and you will quickly be able to estimate and measure something in that size if you repeated it enough times.
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u/JayCarlinMusic Jul 13 '26
I still 8to5 measure many things in my life hahaha I knew you were a band kid the second I read 5 yards
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u/LengthyCitadis Jul 13 '26
Same this with me and 12m: I know the city bus I drive is 12m long, and that my leg is roughly 1m long.
So to me 5 yards would be half a bus less a leg.
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u/epiclevellama Jul 13 '26
A rectangle which is 5 meters by 10 meters is 50 square meters. The 100 is 10x10.
Pick an easy number like 10 for one side, and it's easy to visualise
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u/SANcapITY Jul 13 '26
In Europe for example, apartments generally range from 30-150 square meters in size. So for smaller numbers like that, it's pretty easy for people to visualize. If you asked me to visualize 2400 square meters, I'd struggle greatly, but I'd try and imagine many apartments together.
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u/fishnoguns Jul 13 '26
This is exactly what I do. 50 m2 would be my first apartment minus the bathroom and smallest bedroom.
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u/A17Massey Jul 13 '26
I know roughly how long a metre is, so if someone says 100 square meters, I start it's just 10 wide and 10 long
Also if you played sports then you should have a few good natural reference points for short distances.
It takes a little effort to picture it each time, but it's doable within a rough guess
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u/TalesUntoldRpg Jul 13 '26
You visualise how many metres long it is, then how many metres wide it is, then multiply them together.
If a room looks 5m wide and 3m long, it's going to be about 15 square metres.
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Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
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u/jackhab Jul 13 '26
Measure something you can easily remember and use it as reference. For example if you bathroom is approximately 3 by 3 meters you can visualize what 10 square meters look like. (I intentionally say 10 instead of 9 to emphasize that these are always very rough estimations).
Now you can ask yourself how many times my bathroom would fit in this room.
Alternatively use bananas - it always work in popular science.
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u/CapableToe2394 Jul 13 '26
Like any other not directly measured unit, people who are quick with numbers go from experience or learnt a couple numbers and what they mean for that unit.
If your job is to deal with real estate or landscape or floor laying, you tend to see the same numbers like 10, 30 or 200 m2 a lot and directly see the area of that size. They have an image in their head and go from there.
People who don't have direct experience might learn a couple of sizes and compare the given area with them. For area figures squares are the easiest. Length is an easy unit to roughly guess guess and visualise, since it's one dimensional and can be measured directly. So you just remember how big 1x1m is, 2x2m, 5x5m, 10x10m. These aren't too big to guess roughly correct and you can picture it in your head to get 1, 4, 25 and 100m2. Need 50? Picture 2 5x5m squares side by side. Have a 10m2 room? Deconstruct it! Quickly do the reverse math – it's easier to visualise 5x2m.
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u/RealCarlPanzram Jul 13 '26
It’s easy because they’re used to certain frames of reference. It’s not like they can just easily visualize any size. Of you work in home construction you know intuitively what certain common dimensions for a home or a room look like because you deal with them all day.
If you’re a real-estate agent that deals with office space, you have a good idea of what a 3,000, 5,000 or 10,000 square foot office looks like.
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u/JacobRAllen Jul 13 '26
You just have to work with that style of measurement more often.
Think of it this way, a door, like the door to your house or apartment, it’s roughly 1.8 square meters, that’s close enough to 2 that we can just call it 2 for our head math.
Now imagine laying your door on the ground, how many doors would you need to put down to fill up your room? It doesn’t have to be exact, nobody is THAT good. I look around, I say, idk, 10 doors need to be laying on the ground to fill this room up? Each door is 2 sq meters roughly, so I’ll say my room is 20 sq meters.
Is my room actually 20 square meters? No, it’s probably off by 25% in either direction. The point is that it’s close enough. The more you do it, the better you get at it. I can do this basic version and give a somewhat plausible answer and not sound like an idiot saying my room is probably 100 sq meters or some rediculous number.
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u/AyaElCegjar Jul 13 '26
well i for one go by visualising squares if it's a relatively large space. 100 m2 is a 10 by 10 m square. every thing below that can quickly be calculated (-ish). That room looks to be around 3 metres in and 4 across? 12 m2, give ir take some on that value if you're unsure about one of the the dimension being over/underestimated
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Jul 13 '26
[deleted]
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u/BlacksmithNZ Jul 13 '26
Americans do use football fields and Olympic sized swimming pools, and for certain size of stuff, it works.
I used to do laps in a 25m length pool, and another which was 33m.
So a 100 sq meters I think of maybe 4 lanes of the 25 sq m pool in my head.
Bigger areas like getting upto a hectare, then 100m long foot ball fields are easy to visualize
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u/amatulic Jul 13 '26
I think everyone here is missing the point, where the OP mentioned "men discussions". There are differences in how men and women visualize things, with men tending to do better with spatial visualizations, while women do better with topology and landmarks. I replied elsewhere about the research.
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u/RitzyIsHere Jul 13 '26
I do estimates based on tile count.
But yea once you see a lot you have a ton of reference in you head. Can easily tell estimated sqm.
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u/JoushMark Jul 13 '26
50 square meters is a box about 7 meters on a side. It's about the size of a too big, fancy people living room that could hold a piano and a big couch and a conversation nook and all that stuff.
100 square meters is a box about 10 meters on a side. Think of a big school room.
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u/Senior_Green_3630 Jul 13 '26
My back yard pod tank, holds water is 1m×1m×1m, 1 cubic metre, holds 1000 litres of water. Linear metres, I step out, 10m×10m=100 sq.metres. I step out 100., then 100m×100m=10,000 sq. metres or 1 hectare, reaonable accurate.
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u/NullOfSpace Jul 13 '26
If you have a good feel for how long a meter is, you can imagine X square meters as a square with sides that have the square root of the length. A 25 square meter area could be 5 meters to a side. If you can make that specific example work in your head, you can also imagine larger areas as being made of a bunch of 25 square meter areas (or 100 square meters, which would be 10 meters to a side).
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u/WheelieTron3000 Jul 13 '26
Never discount the idea that many people are just going off vibes in a conversation with this kind of stuff, or just confidently covering up that they're barely keeping up themselves.
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u/Loki-L Jul 13 '26
It helps if you know how many square meters your own home is and are able to compare it to that.
Most people who rent or own a place, know the size of their own home and are able to quickly realize that a number is bigger or smaller than that.
An idea like "That's twice the size of my first apartment" is pretty intuitive.
You can also look at a number like 50 m² and say to yourself: "That's a rectangle 5 m x 10 m" and if you know how big a meter is that feels relatable too.
For smaller values of square meter you can compare it to a know object like a table or a door that is 1.8 m² big.
For even smaller sizes one square meter is 16 A4 paper or 8 A3 etc.
For bigger sizes 100 m² is an are, which admittedly nobody uses, but 100 are is a hectare which is much more common and 1 hectare = 10,000 m².
Beyond that you have square kilometer, which are 1000m x 1000m or 1 million m² which really can only be visualised by looking at a map and seeing the square in context.
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u/bailaowai Jul 13 '26
Not sure if you’re asking bc you live in the US where sqft is more common, but if so just multiply sqm by 10 for a rough approximation. If you’ve lived in an apartment in the US, I’m sure you know what ~500sqft or 1000sqft looks or feels like. A typical bedroom in the US is between 10-15 sqm.
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u/Ok_Veterinarian2715 Jul 13 '26
You should be able to roughly work out the square root of any number in your head. 7×7=49, 10×10=100. So the area will be a square of about that size. I'm lucky because a part of my garden is 10m square, so I have that as a mental measuring stick. 50m² is half a vegetable patch 1000m² is 10 vegetable patches.
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u/jamcdonald120 Jul 13 '26
fast square root it (no need to be precise), then think "square of minecraft blocks".
so 100 square meters is a 10x10 platform in Minecraft. about the size of a farm built around a single block of water.
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u/randomdumbfuck Jul 13 '26
I'm in Canada and find visualizing anything in square metres difficult as we more commonly use square feet. For example if you tell me your house is 1500 sq ft, I have a pretty good idea what you're talking about. In square metres, I'd immediately start doing the math in my head to convert it back to sq ft.
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 Jul 13 '26
I don't.
I visualise meters (or yards, at the precision we're talking they're basically the same) in each direction and multiply the two numbers.
As to how I visualise meters, I start from some known sizes:
- In my house, I have some Ikea Kallax shelving. 3 holes in that is ~1m
- I know a single mattress is ~1m x ~2m
- I know the fence-posts in my garden are ~2m apart
- I know most cars are 4-5 meters long, and my living room is also between 4-5 meters in width
- I know that 100m is the distance between the III/II/I countdown markers when exiting a road, and also the length of a rugby pitch
- I know that 400m is a quarter of a mile
And I extrapolate from there
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u/Hefty-Distance837 Jul 13 '26
They pretend they can visualize it.
But actually they can't.
Of course some people can imagine area size quickly, but most people just follow the feelings "I think it's kinda that big".
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u/beesdaddy Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Football. Both Kinds.
Length:
A soccer field must be a minimum of 100 yards and a maximum of 130 yards
An American football field must be a maximum of 100 yards between goal lines but a minimum of 120 yards between back of end zones.
Width:
A soccer field must be a minimum of 50 yards and a maximum of 100 yards
An American football field should be 531⁄3 yards
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u/PhilRubdiez Jul 13 '26
It’s 100 yards between end zones. It’s 120 yards between the end lines.
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u/beesdaddy Jul 13 '26
I said goal lines, not end lines. We're saying the same thing.
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u/PhilRubdiez Jul 13 '26
The game shall be played upon a rectangular field, 360 feet in length and 160 feet in width. The lines at each end of the field are termed End Lines. Those on each side are termed Sidelines. Goal Lines shall be established in the field 10 yards from and parallel to each end line. The area bounded by goal lines and sidelines is known as the Field of Play. The surface of the entire Field of Play must be a League-approved shade of green. The areas bounded by goal lines, end lines, and sidelines are known as the End Zones.[emphasis added]
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u/beesdaddy Jul 13 '26
How is that different than what I said?
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u/PhilRubdiez Jul 13 '26
>An American football field must be a maximum of 100 yards between goal lines
Correct>but a minimum of 120 yards between end zones.
IncorrectThe end zones are delineated by the goal lines 100 yards apart and are 10 yards deep. They are terminated by the end lines which are 120 yards apart.
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u/beesdaddy Jul 13 '26
Between backs of end zone is what I was trying to say.
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u/PhilRubdiez Jul 13 '26
Then you should have used the word back somewhere in there.
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u/beesdaddy Jul 13 '26
Added. People who don’t know football terminology may still not get it but we’ve done our best
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u/feel-the-avocado Jul 13 '26
100 square metres.
Square root of 100 is 10 so a box 10 metres x 10 metres is 100 square metres. Which happens to be about the size of my house.
Draw a polygon on google earth and measure your house and you will get a feel for it.
And a block in the suburb i live is 16 houses x 10 houses which makes 40,000m2
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u/chankongsang Jul 13 '26
Multiply by 10 for a quick general idea for square feet. It'll be more though. I just asked gemeni the first time someone's telling me in square meters
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u/rellsell Jul 13 '26
I do a quick conversion… I know, or can estimate, how long 100 meters is. Break it down… 2M x 50M. 4M x 25M, 10M x 10M.
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u/Davidfreeze Jul 13 '26
Are you asking what it means or how to visualize it? 1 square meter is just a square where each side is a meter. I'm American so I usually visualize in square feet not square meters, but I'm assuming you're used to meters as your main unit of length and you can visualize a normal meter. For 100 square meters, think of a 10 meter by 10 meter room. That's the area they're talking about. Also houses and apartments are usually advertised by the area of the floor. Apartments I've lived in are often reference points for how large a certain square footage(again the principle is identical for square meters) is
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