General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
Cerebus:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 27, 2019, 04:56:33 am ---How you make the Freemason square that you posted look like metric is beyond me. There are certainly not four short marks between the long ones. Nor does it match a fractional ruler where ever shorter marks apply for each halving. This is what happens when you look to artists for quantitative support for your arguments.
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It's not even consistent. On one division it goes:
long-short-medium-short-medium-long and on the adjacent one it goes
long-short-medium-short-short-long.
If the units are changed on the subsequent supposedly 'metric' example to 1" and 1/10" suddenly it's imperial with the same marking scheme and the same evidential weight. i.e. none.
Anyway, the Freemason's mythology is based on Ancient Egypt, so they're not using imperial or metric units, they are quite evidently using cubits, palms and fingers. Seven palms to a cubit and four fingers to a palm. :)
The fact that no distinction is being made between 'metric' and 'decimal' is one of the many indications in this thread that at least two people here have quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) lost their grip on reason.
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on November 26, 2019, 11:08:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on November 26, 2019, 10:20:26 pm ---It is how the manufacturers (sub) package them. A standard "stick" has 1/2 cup, or 8 tbsp. of butter, with nice lines on the wrapper to cut off the chunk you need. What's not to like? Even a metric user can chop off chunks of 15ml at a time!
It is easier to cut smallish chunks from a stick of butter accurately than it is to cut the larger blocks of butter typically used in European countries.
For usability, the US wins this one!
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There generally are subdivisions on the wrapper that mark out approximate weights. If that presents any kind of challenge you're generally not allowed in a kitchen full stop. ;D
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Of course! - What I mean is, the US sticks are "long and thin" so that the distance between each tablespoon marker is longer than it would be on a larger cross section block. So it is easier to cut off small quantities accurately. Many recipes only require 1 or 2 tbsp!
KL27x:
--- Quote from: Cerebus on November 27, 2019, 12:15:16 pm ---Anyway, the Freemason's mythology is based on Ancient Egypt, so they're not using imperial or metric units, they are quite evidently using cubits, palms and fingers. Seven palms to a cubit and four fingers to a palm. :)
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And the smallest base unit of ancient Egypt is a digit/finger. If you change that to a 1, then it's about an inch. 4 inches to a palm, and 28 inches to a cubit. This is most likely the origin of the Sumerian inch.
Not quite, it seems. It looks like the "digit" was distinct from the "inch."
--- Quote ---The Egyptian hieroglyph for the cubit shows the symbol of a forearm. However, the Egyptian cubit was longer than a typical forearm. It seems to have been composed of 7 palms of 4 digits each totaling 28 parts and was about 52.3-52.4 cm in length according to Arnold [13].
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This is from a random internet search. Going by this figure, the egyptian "digit" was about 3/4" in modern inches. (Actually 0.74" in modern inches.)
--- Quote ---It shows that the Greeks and Romans inherited the foot from the Egyptians. The Roman foot was divided into both 12 unciae (inches) and 16 digits.
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So the modern inch might be pretty dang close to a Sumerian and Roman inch. Within a percent or two, if this random source has it right.
The Egyptians were pretty sophisticated. They didn't build ships and buildings by literally measuring with their palms and fingers. They had standardized measuring equipment. These are just the names they gave their units. Greeks and Romans had their own fingers and feet and forearms. But I assume they inherited these things as units of measurement from the Egyptians through Egyptian tools. Their rulers, I would imagine.
Assuming they originated from the actual measurements of these body parts at some point, 4 "digits" would be pretty much 3 modern inches across the palm. I'm getting 3.26" on my own hand, measuring right at the base of the fingers, which I think would make the most sense. 3.5" across the wider part. So I suppose my hand is potentially less than 10% larger than the hand of w/e ancient Egyptian pharaoh they originally based this unit on. Or maybe up to 17%, at most. (I assume they went by the palm measurement and just divided by four, because each finger is different!)
Interesting to know that today's very standard 3/4" building materials are pretty much an Egyptian "digit." In EU, I don't know what you have or call it. I take it your version of a 3/4" board is something like 18-20mm thick.
I wonder if the gradual favor of inch over digit had to do with increasing utilization, specification, and communication of higher precision. A ruler with 1/16th digit markings might be harder to use than the one with 1/16th inches. Maybe the digit was more common only used down to 1/8ths, for practical purposes. Or something like that.
Also, if you make a ruler with inch markings and fine power of 2^-1 graduations for those inches, you can still overlay digit integers onto this ruler and the lines will coincide. So you have a combination ruler in inches, but with additional markings for whole integers of digits. But it doesn't work the other way around. In this way, "inch" might have become the favored unit where precision mattered, and digits were still used where they were convenient. At one point during this transition period, the ancient Sumerian lumber industry perhaps produced dimensioned boards in digits, still, while shipyards were increasing using fractions of inches in their specifications and work.
tooki:
YouTube just recommended this to me. Interesting historical aspects of metrication. In particular, I like the concluding comment that the citizens in all the metric countries only changed under duress, sometimes even revolting against metric!
Tepe:
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 27, 2019, 07:35:15 pm ---A ruler with 1/16th digit markings might be harder to use than the one with 1/16th inches. Maybe the digit was more common only used down to 1/8ths, for practical purposes. Or something like that.
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That’s all fine and dandy except some countries’ inches were not divided into 1/8ths or 1/16ths. They were divided into 1/12ths which again were divided into 1/12ths.
For example:
1 fod = 12 tommer = 144 linjer = 1728 skrupler
or with symbols:
1I = 12II = 144III = 1728IV
The origin of the prime and double prime for foot and inch is simply superscripted roman numerals :)
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