Examining ATI Wisdom Booklets – Booklet 3 Science The Elements of Our Body

Last updated on: August 22, 2016 at 5:50 pm by Suzanne Titkemeyer

I have a major pet peeve about mixing units that can’t be compared. This section has an egregious example in using gallons of water and pounds of remaining elements. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds at room temperature in the US. That means that a person who is made of 25 pounds of solids would have 17 gallon x 8.34 pounds per gallon = 141.78 pounds of water in them.
Doing the calculations in metric is actually easier!
- One gallon = 3.79 liters so 17 gallons of water x 3.79 liters per gallon = 64.43 liters of water
- One liter of water weighs 1 kilogram so 64.43 L of water = 64.43kg of water.
- 2.2 pounds are in one kilogram so 25 pounds x 1kg/2.2 pounds = 11.36kg of solids
Interesting tidbit missed: The damage done by lack of water is so severe at the cellular level that people will have sustained fatal and irreversible damage within 3 days.