What is Volume and Capacity?
The volume of a substance is the measure of space it occupies. The capacity of a container on the other hand, is defined as the maximum amount of substance it can hold.
For example, if you pour 2 liters of water in a 5 liter bottle, then the volume of water in the bottle is 2 liters and the capacity or volume of the bottle is 5 liters.
What are the measuring units for Volume and Capacity?
Volume and capacity are measured in metric units such liters and milliliters as well as customary units such as gallons, pints, cups and quarts.
What are the main differences between Volume and Capacity?
Solved Examples
Example 1: Find the equivalent capacity.
20 quarts = _ pints
Solution:
There are 2 pints in 1 quart.
\(20\times 2 = 40\) pt [Multiply]
So, 20 quarts is equal to 40 pints.
Example 2: Find the number of pints in 2 gallons.
Solution:
There are 4 quarts in 1 gallon.
\(2\times 4=8\) qt [Multiply]
There are 2 pints in 1 quart.
\(8\times 2=16\)
So, there are 16 pints in 2 gallons.
Example 3: Find the cost of digging a pit of capacity 50 liters if the cost of digging is 0.05 cents per milliliter.
Solution:
There are 1000 milliliters in 1 liter.
\(50\times 1000=50000\) ml
Total cost of digging the pit = Volume of pit × Cost of digging the pit
\(=50000\times 0.05\)
= 2500 cents
So, the total cost of digging the pit is 2500 cents or 25 dollars.
Volume pertains to the amount of space occupied by a substance, but capacity pertains to the maximum amount of substance that a container can hold.
The metric units of volume are cubic meters, cubic centimeters and cubic kilometers.
Larger units such as gallons and kiloliters can be used to measure volume and capacity of larger objects.
We can measure capacity in both customary as well as metric units.