On one side of the measuring cup are the usual measure lines. On the other side are angled lines showing cup and milliliter measures. These markings are part of radii radiating from the spout and show amounts when pouring.
For example, starting with a full cup one can see when one has poured out a third of a cup or when a half cup is left (the contents’ surface is even with the œ cup angled line). Also this system would be useful on the pitcher of a coffee machine (before filling the machine, pour off excess water from the pitcher to a marking) or when pouring equal glasses of wine from a bottle or carafe.-- FarmerJohn, Jan 04 2005 Volume of Cylindrical Segment http://mathworld.wo...ndricalSegment.htmlbasis for calculating volume of a cylindrical Segment [csea, Jan 04 2005] (???) So close, yet so far http://www.annexcoo...roductcode=OXO70981 [Shz, Jan 05 2005] (?) Nigella Lawson measuring jug http://www.gadgethu...roductGroupID=12823now baked [FarmerJohn, Mar 20 2005] Liquid Measure with a Precise Tilt http://www.yankodes...ith-a-precise-tilt/ [xaviergisz, Dec 14 2011] US patent number 6212953 https://patents.goo...3B1/en?oq=us6212953 [xaviergisz, Dec 15 2011, last modified Mar 11 2021] GB patent number 2142523 http://worldwide.es...GB&NR=2142523A&KC=A [xaviergisz, Dec 15 2011] Lets hear it for angular pouring lines.
For the Philosophers outthere the cup is nearly always half empty.
Cups which contain approximately 50% of their contents are statistically more likely to have been left in this limbo state having been in the process of being drained. The period of time when a cup is being filled is very short where as the period of time where the cup is being slowly empitied takes much longer. So statistically speaking the cups are almost always being emptied.
(Farmer I hope you didn't just vote for your self. That would be poor baking form)-- PainOCommonSense, Jan 04 2005 <ssssshhhhh>
Genius at work.-- ConsulFlaminicus, Jan 04 2005 Also useful for measuring fluids when cooking in the galleys of listing ships (or even pirate galleons).-- hippo, Jan 04 2005 [Pain] Nope.-- FarmerJohn, Jan 04 2005 but not everyone poors at the same angle-- redwheel, Jan 04 2005 Excellent. Similar lines would be useful to indicate maximum capacity on a kettle when filling at an angle (to clear the half-finished pile of dishes in the sink).
Can someone else explain to redwheel - I should be working.-- egbert, Jan 04 2005 logged on momentarily to say - brilliant!-- po, Jan 04 2005 Yes, po.-- skinflaps, Jan 04 2005 The ghost vote was mine. I had nothing to declare except his genius.-- stupop, Jan 04 2005 Awesome! Love the tag line: "A measuring cup for half baking"
Yes!
However, I did some further thinking on the actual volume vs. angle of tilt (of a unit cylinder for simplicity), and it's a bit complex. It will be fairly linear until the "trailing meniscus" intersects the bottom of the cylinder, then will follow another equation [links], and the slope will get very steep as the cylinder becomes close to horizontal.
So, it might be mostly useful for fairly coarse units, (1/4, 1/2, 1/3, 2/3).
Still, amazing and wonderful to see a new wrinkle on what seemed to be a completely baked tool!-- csea, Jan 04 2005 wahoooooooo!-- lumpysausage007, Jan 04 2005 measuring jugs for all, stunning [FJ].-- neilp, Jan 04 2005 So simple. +-- Shz, Jan 05 2005 Very nice, FJ.
[PainOCS]: How is voting for your own ideas poor baking form? I always vote for my ideas and think that if you believe in the idea enough to post it for others to see than you believe in it enough to vote for it as well.-- bristolz, Jan 05 2005 FJ, so simple and yet elegant.+ :) Very useful for adding oil to the car! <walk down memory lane> I had a similar problem just like this in industry, where a tapered crucible held 1.5 tons of leaded bronze (for car bearings). The customer specified 1 litre per minute to be poured out with +/-5% accuracy at all angles. I used Excel Visual Basic to cut segments at all angles and calculate the volume of each slice. Then I confirmed the calculation with a water test, where the crucible was tilted at a constant rate, and the poured water was weighed over time. The graph of the weight was the inverse of the pouring speed required for a constant output. The graph shown in [csea]'s link brings back memories. p.s. sorry for the rambling.-- Ling, Jan 05 2005 Hmm, what's wrong with this idea...(mensmax, grasshopper), know when not to fuss...-- blissmiss, Jan 05 2005 Good grief. What a site! I just had to join. Welcome to myself!!!
The pouring lines is an excellent idea, but I voted against. Sorry. The problem is how fast are you pouring? If the contents go over the lip of the container say 1mm deep, the tilt angle would be different than if say it clears the lip at 10mm deep. To measure you will have to stop pouring every now and again. So it won't matter much if you measure at an angle or horisontal. (Spouts won't work either. Figure it out....)
For known densities, say water which weight 1kg per litre, a scale could be used build into the handle to measure the weight. But that would be different for say oil, but a small thingy-ma-jix could correct such errors in specific densities. (Make it processor controlled...)
BTW. Fuel pumps do not measure the weight of the fuel passing through. It measures the volume of the fuel. On warm days, fuel expand in volume. I.e. you get less fuel for you money, so fill up on real cold days. (Don't believe me? Fill up to the top in the morning, park your car in the sun, and you will find a pool of fuel under the car before the day is over. )Aircraft fuel gets measured in weight. Now apply the volume to heat principle to the kitchen and you know why the cookie crumbles!!!! (Its a pun for those that won't understand...)-- Groot Brak, Jan 05 2005 Thanks for explaining your own pun [Groot Brak]. A valid point about the depth of liquid running over the spout whilst pouring, but when adding liquid to something you will initially start to pour fast, HOWEVER: as you see it getting close to the desired amount, you will slow down and perhaps stop briefly to the point where the depth at the spout is negligible/zero. As such, the jug will be calibrated to a zero depth at spout.
Welcome to the 1/2B.-- stupop, Jan 05 2005 To add to [stupop]’s explanation: when pouring, if you keep the surface of the liquid parallel the desired measurement line, the pouring will cease exactly at the line.-- FarmerJohn, Jan 05 2005 It's so good except not one example why. This is useless when making my muffin mix; it's worse. You're still using tiny lines that only middle aged people with two hunded dollar glasses and teenage girls can figure out.
A better idea is to have containers with lids, dedicated to predominant kitchen tasks and with large volume indicating numbers. A muffin mix container would have marks for each ingredient as you add it.
I hate to say a revolutionary thing here but this device will help make more people unhealthy in the long run. Many people don't belong in the kitchen, experimenting with multi ingredients. They are closet sorcerers, failed scientists and I denounce them here. Their spouses suddenly drop dead. Gee, they'll have to remember to use a little less ------- in the 'recipe' next time.-- mensmaximus, Jan 05 2005 [WastedSpace], I'm not here to waste your time, the issue is not clearly stated. Are the measurements in this idea in Reverse to a conventional cup as mentioned in //one can see when one has poured out a third of a cup//?
A lid? On a previous idea about freezing pancake mix or other mixes ,why not use one container for measuring, mixing, freezing, thawing, and pouring? In the coming era of resealable metal food containers there may be an advancement related to this idea - food is inferred in the idea description. ***'I'm pulling on a train of thought'*** original mensmaximus quote, ***coming soon to a theatre here soon.-- mensmaximus, Jan 05 2005 I think you spoke too soon [Shz]-- stupop, Jan 05 2005 I suppose the appeal of this must be to provide certainty to the scientifically minded chef, terrified as he or she will be by such rough and hazy measurements as "half a cup" or "a pinch."-- calum, Jan 05 2005 I don't think so, many recipies require you to pour out an accurate amount of a mixture and won't work with rough measures. The appeal is that it avoids the pour, straighten, read scale, pour straighten, read scale shennanigans and allows you to pour only once while simultaneously reading the scale. One of those rare ideas that is simple, useful and commercially viable.-- wagster, Jan 05 2005 [Wagster], I'm new on the planet but that's not how things are measured in the kitchen. A superior idea to this cup that you've never seen sold anywhere in public for the last 100 years except on this plastic internet; is a stand five feet high where a standard measuring cup sits on. Or do you have system where you open all your ingredients when you get them home and store them in open measuring cups?-- mensmaximus, Jan 05 2005 [mensmaximus] - no, I open all my ingredients when I get home and eat them.-- wagster, Jan 05 2005 I would suggest, as a possible enhancement to this, that the cup include an internal tilt gauge. Many forms of batter and such can stick to the side of a vessel and make it very difficult to see lines inscribed thereon. Transparent vessels can alleviate this problem somewhat, but not completely. Adding a tilt sensor, however, would allow someone to know the angle at which they had to hold the vessel in order to dispense the required quantity of stuff.-- supercat, Jan 06 2005 I like the root idea, and some of the suggestions as well. However, the cup is neither half-full nor half-empty, merely over-engineered.-- normzone, Jan 06 2005 Surely it’s half full and half empty until observed. :)
[stupop], that was a note to self more than anything. I had this thing beeping when the desired amount was dispensed, and preventing it from tilting too far. But it’s just fine the way it is - simple.-- Shz, Jan 06 2005 Anyone clocking the incubation period on this idea?-- reensure, Jan 06 2005 'tsa good'n. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 06 2005 [Shz] I agree the ideas is nice and simple. It is the annotaters' inability to comprehend it that is complicating matters.-- stupop, Jan 06 2005 Okay, this sounds good on the face of it, but assuming you might start with half a cup, or 2/3rds of a cup, don’t you need a full set of lines for each possible starting point? With all those lines overlaying each other, won’t it get terribly confusing? Or am I missing something? Perhaps you always start with the same amount (say two cups). You use 1/3 cup. Fine. But then you have to pour the extra back into the original container (and risk contaminating it) or toss it out. Or, even worse, maybe you're expected to do fractions in your head? My God, I have enough trouble in the kitchen...-- ldischler, Jan 06 2005 I was thinking mainly in the context of a recipe that for example calls for mixing in a third of a cup of milk first and then the rest later or pouring out equal amounts into different containers or measuring water. Filling the measuring cup with a liquid or powder that shouldn’t be wasted or poured back might be easier with use of the horizontal markings on the other side, but not always (such as scooping out flour with a clean cup at an angle).-- FarmerJohn, Jan 06 2005 << Waiting for the 1/2 Bakery idea: "Eliminate the 1/3 measure from recipes." with the intent of goading "Go metric !" in tauntlike fashion.-- reensure, Jan 07 2005 Initially this sounds genius, yet with further investigations, why are you over-measuring?-- littlebruno, Jan 07 2005 Is the cup half-full or half-empty? When contemplating an answer, one must first consider that the part of the cup that is most useful is the part that does not exist.-- Aegir, Jan 07 2005 Add a level sensor inside the cup (or a manual slide on the outside) to input the horizontal level of the contents. Add a rotating pendulum level inside the handle to measure the angle of the cup. Set the dial on the handle to the amount you would like to dispense, and let the cup do the math. It beeps when it has been tilted far enough to dispense the set amount.
Sliding virtual angular calibration - so simple.-- Shz, Jan 07 2005 [Bristolz] your ideas are always so good that there is a rush to vote for them and nobody has ever noticed you voting for your self.-- PainOCommonSense, Jan 07 2005 [littlebruno]: The idea, if not too expensive, could be applied to vessels that are used to store ingredients.-- supercat, Jan 07 2005 One must pour an exact full cup to then pour out an exact partial measurement. In that case, they should just pour in the exact partial measurement first.
FarmerJohn points out that his idea, however, is for recipes that require a full cup, part of it poured in first.-- Mustardface, Jan 08 2005 In the case of adding oil to the car engine, as I already mentioned, this would be helpful. I'm sure I can do the mental arithmetic required to pour out 1 litre from a can that has a mximum capacity of 5 litres, and currently holds 3 litres. Because I insist on losing my funnel every time, then the ability to measure oil out, without returning the can back to vertical (and dribbling oil all over the place), would be appreciated.-- Ling, Jan 08 2005 I always managed to get around the 'half full or half empty' conundrum by say that it was half full of air, which I figured out when I was twelve, but I think I need to find another answer, as I've been using that answer for the past 3 years. This might just help me out.-- froglet, Mar 21 2005 [froglet] The correct response to the question is..
"That glass is crazily overengineered. Some fool has designed it to have a 100% safety margin. There's just no need to waste that amount of silica to contain this volume of water. Sheesh."-- ConsulFlaminicus, Mar 21 2005 funny, I think I am a half empty person but sometimes I know I am a half full (of what, that's the question)?
has someone hi-jacked your account or what?-- po, Aug 01 2005 Brilliant.
But the starting point requirement still bugs me. Could you put the angled lines on a clear sliding "jacket" that you could adjust to the level you happen to have each time? I know the angles change as level changes (a half a cup at the top of a 2 cup cup would be a different angle than the last half a cup in the same cup) but couldn't this be accounted for somehow? (like making the cup a perfect hemisphere? --does that work? sorry, too late to think properly.) Or making each line on the jacket hinge wrt each other line in a predetermined way as it slides up and down.
Just a thought.
Still, brilliant.-- oxen crossing, Aug 02 2005 To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the computer programmer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Anyway, nice idea.-- dbmag9, Aug 13 2005 Seeing how much water is in a kettle at an angled level would be quite handy, I found myself compensating for this since our new kettle doesn't fit properly in the sink, even tho it has cup markings up the side. As for the measuring cup, I'm sure it'd work for the larger amounts, above 1/2. You'd only want the common measures marking anyhow for a 'convinience' system.-- Markavian, Aug 14 2005 Hmmmm... Fills me with a feeling that more people should appreciate your genius.-- Dub, Aug 15 2005 They did, 'cept one. Jealousy is ugly.-- blissmiss, Aug 16 2005 That's a really, really good idea. It's actually much too elegant for the halfbakery, probably it would be better to actually make these. The halfbaked solution is to take a normal measuring cup and put a valve in the bottom...-- GutPunchLullabies, Aug 16 2005 The cup is half full when you are filling it up and it's half empty when you are drinking it down.... there's no philosophy here, merely convention that needs to be convented.-- quantum_flux, Nov 25 2007 Would you like a twisted with that?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 18 2011 random, halfbakery