Paper Sizes

[Tronhard]

There is logic in the Philippines using imperial. The islands came under US influence during the Spanish/American war and were essentially one of the US' first colonial acquisitions. Consequently they have the same measurement system.

[Tronhard]

Bernard

I like your image, it shows the incongruous and inconsistent nature of the UK system.
So in metric terms it's 10km to Cross (6x1.6093m) and
Luss is 11km away 10km + [1km = (1 furlong = 10 chains = 201.168m) x5!]

[IzzieK]

And how the heck are you supposed to measure out a cup of butter

This is how butter comes here in the US...



Each slice that you see here is 1/4 tbsp. so 4 slices is equivalent to 1/4 cup. The whole is 1 cup. There is a marking to indicate 1/4 tbsp measurement, so we do not get confused...my friends from the cooking group are envious of us here because we have this exact measurement...

Oh btw...Richard thanks for the link...It surely helps.

[Cantab]

Then I went to Canada, a country that has ostensibly gone metric, only to discover that many people cling to imperial and no-one seems to use metric sized paper! Apparently it is because the mills are geared up to cater for the US and 34 million people is not considered a significant market... The UK has issues too, as they often display speeds in MPH, and sell petrol in gallons, despite being "metric".

Yes, Canada went metric pretty well 40 years ago but when I go to the store to buy loose tea or meat I ask for a half pound or whatever. Our house thermometer is metric but I run my greenhouse thermometer in fahrenheit since that's what I was first used to in trying to heat a greenhouse. As Trev noted, lumber is imperial in Canada. I wonder about kids who learn metric at school and then if they become a carpenter have to figure out what a foot is. It all makes life interesting.

[mastamak]

The thing about the Imperial system is that it was never really designed, it evolved.

And, as a person who has spent his entire working life measuring stuff, that is why I prefer the imperial system of measurement. In my opinion we should have never gone over to the silly metric system - a relic of the French revolution. The French even changed the clock to 100 minutes per hour, degrees minutes and seconds and the whole catastrophe. Fortunately common sense, in the form of the British Navy, prevailed as this craziness made navigational calculations even more difficult. The advent of electronic calculators has largely made the arguments in favour of metric obsolete.

Why is the imperial system so good? It is because it is intuitive. We all have a foot, therefore we know how long is foot is, roughly. likewise an inch or a yard. Even today, in Australia, children who know nothing of the imperial system will express a person's height in feet and inches. We can easily visualise the difference between a person who is 5'6" and one who is 6'2", but to say someone is 185 cm tall is pretty meaningless to most people.

If I want to pace out 100 yards - 100 long paces will do it, but 100 metres requires 120 paces. OK if you know it confusing to judge distance if you don't.

So good on the USA for retaining the sensible, tried and tested by time, imperial system.

In Australia we say the large unit first - thus a piece of timber will be described as a 4b2 (even today).

But one unforgivable American numerical crime is to state dates by month first. This is completely counter-intuitive. All sensible people go from the smallest to the largest - day/month/year. Very confusing as I found when I was required to submit a photography entry by 11/12/2014. Naturally I submitted it before 11th December - sorry I was told - you are a month too late.
Grant

[mastamak]

Bernard

I like your image, it shows the incongruous and inconsistent nature of the UK system.
So in metric terms it's 10km to Cross (6x1.6093m) and
Luss is 11km away 10km + [1km = (1 furlong = 10 chains = 201.168m) x5!]

Reminds me of the "Peter Principle" of physics - Units shall, always be expressed in the most obscure manner possible.

Eg, acceleration - furlongs per fortnight squared.

Grant

[Tronhard]

Reminds me of the "Peter Principle" of physics - Units shall, always be expressed in the most obscure manner possible.

Eg, acceleration - furlongs per fortnight squared.

Grant

Must be a glacially slow horse... Isn't Aussie metric too? I had always thought so.

Sorry Grant, have to disagree I HATE imperial for distance, area and paper sizes (actually all those derived metrics as well) and I grew up with it! I made the decision to go metric and never look back and I'm glad I did.... I can still work in imperial, but on a computer it's a pain in the proverbial! When I was doing legal survey I had to work in links and chains for lineal measure, then acres, roods and perches for area. Now all I have to do is think metres and hectares!

However, you DO have my support on the degrees, minutes and seconds issue of compasses. Rads just never gelled for me.

In Canada the official format for dates is YYYYMMDD, and there is good reason for that. If one inputs a date in that format into a text box you can sort chronologically just fine, any other format cannot be sorted without algorithms. (Don't confuse this with an AlGoreRythm: the music that Bill Clinton's VP liked to play... or a LoggerRhythm: the music that lumberjacks dance to...)

[george013]

Yes, but the silly thing is that if I crop to "A" sizes, I can print one up to A4, but if I want the same crop but smaller, I usually print two up on A4.

Is A5 paper readily available in the Netherlands?

Dave

But you've to crop. And when I let my film develop I just want to see what's on it. The same for digital. If going bigger I suspect that you are more dedicated to a certain presentation.

The Netherlands are quite normal, so metric.

There are also B and C formats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size

I think the main purpose of this approach is that one can get a smaller format out of a bigger without loss of paper.

If printing yourself the A5 format is quite pleasant. You can get 2 out off a A4 paper. You can put it in a A4 map and it's some bigger as a "normal" photoprint. I think it's much cheaper too.

George

[pnodrog]

How does Super A3 e.g. 13"(329mm) x 19"(483mm) fit into all this?...

I often cut it in half when I want a 12" x 8" print plus a border. Actually I wish Epson would supply a "Super A4" size as I would find it very useful.

[george013]

How does Super A3 e.g. 13"(329mm) x 19"(483mm) fit into all this?...

I often cut it in half when I want a 12" x 8" print plus a border. Actually I wish Epson would supply a "Super A4" size as I would find it very useful.

Super A3 doesn't exist. It's not a normalised size. I'd to look it up myself http://www.papersizes.org/a-paper-sizes.htm

George

[pnodrog]

Super A3 doesn't exist. It's not a normalised size. I'd to look it up myself http://www.papersizes.org/a-paper-sizes.htm

George

I know it does not exist but Epson sells it and I use it...... They also call it A3+

Part No S041352, S041340 plus others.

[ST1]

I have and have used A3+ in Canon Photo Paper.
I usually purchase from the following online retailer, for clarity I've no commercial link to the supplier

https://www.7dayshop.com/products/ca...-a3-2768B018AB

[John 2]

I don't find it difficult to visualise metric distances. For instance 1 metre is 39 inches.

[pnodrog]

I don't find it difficult to visualise metric distances. For instance 1 metre is 39 inches.

I struggle to visualise light years and infinity in either metric or imperial......

[george013]

And to have more fun: from the wikipedia papersizes by example A4 210x297mm, equal with 8.27"x11.7". How do you work with decimal inches?

Saying A3+ doesn't exist means it's not a standard size as it suggests. Everybody can take some pair of scissors. That that size is sold means off course it has some background why.

George

[IzzieK]

OK we are talking of, not only paper sizes here but also measurements...I know what a foot is but dang if I can translate that in mm unless I look at the internet for the equivalent (Bless Al Gore who invented the internet!! ) at least I can have a reference. But eggs?!?!!??? either it is a dozen count/box (western countries) or 10 count/box (Asian countries)...wonder why --my weakness are maths and sciences in school and never been really good at it but we deal with it almost everyday of our lives.

Trev, I've been in trouble about dates too because as an Aussie raised person, it was hard to write your birthday on a bank profile as MM/DD/YYYY because of my thinking YYYY/MM/DD, instead of writing 04/11/YYYY I wrote YYYY/04/11. I thought it was easy to understand for me but they thought the other way around and I cannot access my account until I asked my husband to sort it with them because "I can't understand Western English.."

[george013]

OK we are talking of, not only paper sizes here but also measurements...I know what a foot is but dang if I can translate that in mm unless I look at the internet for the equivalent (Bless Al Gore who invented the internet!! ) at least I can have a reference. But eggs?!?!!??? either it is a dozen count/box (western countries) or 10 count/box (Asian countries)...wonder why --my weakness are maths and sciences in school and never been really good at it but we deal with it almost everyday of our lives.

Trev, I've been in trouble about dates too because as an Aussie raised person, it was hard to write your birthday on a bank profile as MM/DD/YYYY because of my thinking YYYY/MM/DD, instead of writing 04/11/YYYY I wrote YYYY/04/11. I thought it was easy to understand for me but they thought the other way around and I cannot access my account until I asked my husband to sort it with them because "I can't understand Western English.."

Date is another thing. I'm used to ddmmyy. But when sorting things it's easier to write yymmdd. If you sort date on a pc as a character value you should do that. If you sort date as a date value, it doesn't make a difference. Dates are calculated back as a numerical value with a offset date. I thought it was january 1 1900. Not sure.

Another thing is the decimal point or comma. A year ago the council of Amsterdam made some transfers. In stead of 1.8 million they transferred 180 million. It was at the same time the involved bank changed their website. It was the only bank that uses the decimal comma, others use the decimal point.

George

[rpcrowe]

The thing about the Imperial system is that it was never really designed, it evolved. Furthermore it suited a society that wanted to work on fractions because they were easier to use in the pre-digital age. However I like the consistency of the SI (Systems International) system which is based on decimals and therefore excellent to use with digital calculating devices, which is certainly not true of fractions - when I get measurements in feet and inches I have to convert them to parts of a foot and then I can add them up in Excel.

For A-sized paper I definitely like the idea that as I reduce or increase the paper sizes the proportions remain constant, not just for photography but for all sorts of applications including sizing technical drawings.

The seeming oddity about A series paper is that it is based on the idea that an A0 sheet is pretty much exactly 1sqm in area. Take into acount the required ratios to achieve that and we get the seemingly weird dimension. Each smaller sheet is half the area, each 2x smaller sheet is half the dimensions and so on.

When I took my College Graduate Record Exam, as part of my Master of Science Degree program. there was a section in the Math Portion dealing with fractions. For some of the more complicated fractional equations, I found it easier to convert the darn things to metric and do my calculations in metric. Since the answers were multiple choice, I would then select the fractional answer closest to my metric calculations. Clumsy, yes! However, I did quite well on that section of the test!

I can live with Imperial Measurements but, have problems with the really unique and archaic measurement units such as "stone" (for a persons weight), "rods" and "chains" for distance, "hands" for a horses height, and so on! Furlongs seem only to be used in America regarding horse racing distances.

Here is the Wikipedia explanation of some of these measurements derived from the Old English:

The rod is a historical unit of length equal to 5½ yards. It may have originated from the typical length of a mediaeval ox-goad. There are 4 rods in one chain.

The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains.

An acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind one ox in one day. Traditional acres were long and narrow due to the difficulty in turning the plough and the value of river front access.

[george013]

When I took my College Graduate Record Exam, as part of my Master of Science Degree program. there was a section in the Math Portion dealing with fractions. For some of the more complicated fractional equations, I found it easier to convert the darn things to metric and do my calculations in metric. Since the answers were multiple choice, I would then select the fractional answer closest to my metric calculations. Clumsy, yes! However, I did quite well on that section of the test!

I can live with Imperial Measurements but, have problems with the really unique and archaic measurement units such as "stone" (for a persons weight), "rods" for distance, "hands" for a horses height, and so on!

Another thing that REALLY GRIPES ME is carpentry measurements of lumber sizes. Why should a 2-inch x 4" piece of wood actually measure 1.75-inches x 3.75-inches.

Plywood is another thing thatis off

Plywood Thickness:
Sanded Nominal Thickness
1/4 3/8 1/2 5/8 3/4 1-1/8
Actual Thickness
1/4 11/32 15/32 19/32 23/32 1-1/8

None of the actual thicknesses coincide with the nominal thicknesses except in the 1-1/8 size

Rough wood is mentioned, planed wood is sold.

Also something alike with iron pipes. In Holland they're cold iron thread pipes and numbered in inches. When you measure the 1" pipe, you will never find the 1". Explanation: When factoring the pipes became better, a less thickness could be archieved with the same quality.

George

[davidedric]

Stones and pounds are still used by the older generation (like me) - not really archaic! Same for hands, still universally used in the UK so far as I know.

Fortnight, for two weeks, still in use, but sennight for a week went out a while go.

As another useless piece of information, the length of a cricket pitch is one chain.

Dave