All,
A bit off topic, but do you know why we have 10 fingers?
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Our creator knew that a thumb was useful and between 8-12
fingers would be a good balance between sufficiency and
reduncancy.
However, she wasn't all that good a math, so she called
in her consultants. How many fingers, she asked?
"Until they have calculators, these caveman are bound
to count on their fingers. I must get this one right!"
she exclaimed.
1) The engineer said 8. Its a power of 2 and compatible
with computers in the future. Count the toes (they were
barefoot in the caves) and we get hexadecimal.
2) The mathematician demanded 12. Its divisible by {2,3,4}.
Thus, you will find it everywhere: inches-per-foot,
hours-per-day (sort of), notes-per-octave (sort of),
etc.
These two guys argued and she insisted on an answer.
As a result, they compromized and we have 10 fingers.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
There is actually a point to this story.
We tend to confuse what is best with what we know.
Either 8 or 12 would have been better...
DVJ
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Randomthots
>> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 2:19 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: [users] Re: Dimensions in inches: need >2 decimal places
>>
>>
>> Johnny Andersson wrote:
>>
>> > I like wars, can I be a part of these ones..? ;D
>> >
>> Sure. Pull up a rock and have fun. :)
>>
>> > About paper sizes, just a question of curiosity: How does the letter
>> > size work?
>>
>> The is no real "system", just an accretion of conventions over the
>> years. There are several "standard" sizes used for paper, photos, and
>> index cards.
>>
>> > The A sizes are easy to understand.
>>
>> That's because it was actually designed at some point. You don't
>> "understand" the American system; you just remember it.
>>
>> >
>> > A0=1 m² and height/width=SquareRoot(2)
>> > A1=A0 cut in the middle=1/2 m², height/width=SquareRoot(2)
>> > A2=1/4 m², still height/width=(2)
>> > and so on...
>> >
>> > So height(A(n))=width(A(n-1)), width(A(n))=height(A(n-1))/2.
>> >
>> > Simple mathematics. So tell me about the Letter format.
>> >
>>
>> 8.5" x 11" -- Standard Letter
>> 8.5" x 14" -- Legal Letter
>> 5.5" x 8.5" -- Half Letter
>> 11" x 17"
>> 17" x 22"
>>
>> >
>> > As Carl said (indirectly), the metric system is more logical then the
>> > imperial one, but the one you are used to is stil the easiest one to
>> > handle, just because you are used to it. But you can get used to just
>> > about everything, just if you want to. A couple of years scientists
>> > thought that it's harder to learn when you get older but now
>> they found
>> > that that is not correct. The problem seems to be that older
>> people are
>> > not that willing to learn new things. We (me included, I am 39 soon)
>> > think that we don't have to learn so much more or tired are tired of
>> > learning, but if we find something to be very interesting and
>> we really
>> > want to learn about it, we learn it very fast!
>>
>> The metric system is very logical. I like it a lot. But if you live in
>> the States then the reality is that most of the measurements you see and
>> live with are in the Imperial scale, like it or not. So that's what you
>> become accustomed to. And more importantly, that's what you develop an
>> intuitive feel for. I always have to do quick "order of magnitude"
>> conversions in my head when talking about metric measurements. The worst
>> for me is Celsius vs. Fahrenheit. I just have no feel for whether or not
>> I need a jacket based on a Celsius temperature.
>>
>> We could have, and should have, converted 30 years ago but the
>> government started out the endeavor by publishing all these conversion
>> charts to 5 decimal places. Everybody was bitching about having to do
>> all that math all the time. It was a mostly specious complaint but it
>> stopped the changeover dead in its tracks.
>>
>>
>> >
>> > And yes, about the original topic, an option for more decimals? Sure,
>> > why not? If the user only want one or two decimals, well just let him
>> > set the number of decimals to 1 or 2. If he wants 19
>> decimals, why stop
>> > him? So I would probably vote for a feature like that.
>>
>> One problem with Imperial scales is that, by convention, fractional
>> divisions are binary rather than decimal. You talk about 1/2, 1/4, 1/8,
>> 1/16, etc... so every division down needs another decimal place to be
>> accurately written. I guess in that regard Imperial is more consonant
>> with computer representation than metric is. Small numbers written in
>> binary would end up translating that way.
>>
>> Anyway, if the only paper you can buy is 8 1/2 x 11 inches and you need
>> 1" margins with 1/2" indents, etc., then working with metric is a PITA.
>> Those kind of mathematical conversions are what this electronic slave I
>> call a computer is supposed to be good for.
>>
>> Say you want to create an 1/8" grid that's 8" wide and 10" long. 1/8" =
>> 0.125. Round that to .13 and multiply by 64 = 8.32. That's over a
>> quarter of an inch off over the width of the page and almost a half inch
>> over the height of the page. I agree that you can't see 1/200", but the
>> cumulative effect is very noticable
>>
>> Rod
>>
>>
>>
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