Leonard Blaisdell > wrote:
:In article >,
: "Felice" > wrote:

:> Thanks, David. That explains it a lot more clearly than my dictionary or
:> Wiki. The only meniscus I knew was the knee one!

:And your knee is the only one you should worry about unless you are
:using very small diameter containers and doing chemistry.

Using very small diamter containers reduces the inaccuracy. There's a
reason that volumetric flasks and other glassware are as narrow as
practical. The meniscus is important in cooking, too. I put 100
grams of cold tap water my Pyrex 1 cup measure. The top of the
meniscus is well above the 100 ml line, about 110. The bottom of the
meniscus is at 100ml. If I fill the container so that the top of the
meniscus appears to be at 100 ml while I'm standing up, I only end up
with 87 grams of water in the cup. That's 13% error, and pretty
substantial.