English units and decimals - Page 3

Acolyte · #61 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delvo

I didn't say it wasn't an actual problem. I'm talking about a matter of what the limiting factors are in which situations, and the ones you've just described only make the keyboard layout even more irrelevant for the mechanical problem. People can learn to press keys very rapidly in any layout, so any difference in how rapidly between different layouts can only show up in the high speed range. That can only be the limiting factor when typewriter mechanics are not. You're talking about things that would force people to stick to lower speeds than that no matter what kind of arrangement the buttons were in, which would make THOSE issues, not button arrangement, the limiting factor at those lower speeds.

Just think about how fast you or someone else you've seen can type on a modern electronic keyboard without the issue you described. They're doing that with a QWERTY keyboard. If the mechanical issues force a typist to go slower than that, then QWERTY arrangement was not slowing them down enough for the old mechanical devices; the machinery, not the button arrangement, was the limiting factor. The button arrangement could have, and today does, allow for faster speeds than the old machines did, so the button arrangement simply does not slow people down enough to be a solution for the mechanical issues.

People only type fast on QWERTY because they've grown up with it. Once upon a time, they tried to bring in typewriters & found that if they based the keyboard logically (based on common letters under the easiest fingers) then people could easily outpace the ability of the mechanical action to produce the type. You have to realise, on the original typewriters, the limiting faactor wasn't in how fast the keys could be made to hit the ribbon, it was how fast the mechanism could get the lever away from the ribbon. ie. before the next one came in.

Again, unless you've used one, you wouldn't know what the limitations were. And even the later manual typewriters would have sticky key problems with high speed stenographers. Once upon a time there were typewriter mechanics who kept critical resources in mint condition to ensure the highly paid typist could get her work done without problems.

Acolyte · #62 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hhEb09'1

An equilateral triangle would have 83 1/3 degrees instead of 60. An isoceles right triangle would have 62 1/2 degrees instead of 45. Nasty stuff. Those were basic implements.Base 60, still the most widely used base today, was mentioned earlier.

Once we detach the #º from the year then it's free form. Why not 300º? Internal angles in a triangle then sum to 150º which divides nicely for an equilaterals & is also natural for a race with 5 fingers per hand.

There's another problem with this reasoning - it's the idea that they need to know the intricacies of geometry before they come up with the units to measure it.

Cubits hands & palms are all natural but even there, there were 'sacred' measures based on 6 eg. the Hebrew tabernacle had them. eg. Stonehenge & Avebury seem to have been built on a 'sacred' rod that is 6/5ths of the neolithic rod. The units that come out in whole numbers for the Giza plateau also seem to be 6/5ths of the standard units.

Acolyte · #63 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jens

I guess the logical alternative is that the 360 degrees in a circle is not related to the length of the year. And anyway, I don't think I'd be able to argue that the ancients were not as intelligent as us. AFAIK it's an evolutionary trait mainly, and 5,000 or 6,000 years seems not enough to make any change in the basic makeup of our brains.

That's my point - if it isn't related to the year, then from where do we get it? 6's & 12's are everywhere - just look at the BS we go through to work out our calendar so we can have 12 months to match the 12 'houses' of the constellation. 13 months of 28 days would work VERY nicely thanks you - add in a New Year holiday & you have a year that needs adjusting something like every century rather than every four years, unless the year can be divided by 100, unless it can be divided by... etc. All to make 12 months work out.

It takes some effort of imagination, but before just saying 'it works' or 'it's natural' try to think through what a primitive people may have known BEFORE they required these measurements. Suggesting they came up with 360º because they needed to work out geometry is getting it the wrong way around. They were measuring Sun & Moon long before they needed the formula for internal angles of a triangle - they had to be - knowing the year cycle, understanding the seasons meant they got to eat better. Being able to measure where the sun came over the horizon is part of that. But measuring where the sun rises doesn't lead 'naturally' to 360º in a circle.

weatherc · #64 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jens

As long as you have an "alt" key on your keyboard. Otherwise, it's a combination of "option" and something.

But it is interesting about the geometry and 360. Obviously the people who set the number did so for good reasons.

Option + shift + 8 will give you the ° symbol if you're using a Mac.

hhEb09'1 · #65 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Once we detach the #º from the year then it's free form. Why not 300º? Internal angles in a triangle then sum to 150º which divides nicely for an equilaterals & is also natural for a race with 5 fingers per hand.

I also mentioned the isosceles right triangle. In that scheme, it would have 37 1/2 degrees

Quote:

There's another problem with this reasoning - it's the idea that they need to know the intricacies of geometry before they come up with the units to measure it.

Well, they weren't stupid.

As I point out, they did use a base ten sort of grouping, which might have been part of the early evolution. When they needed more involved and sophisticated measurements, they went with base 60. Why? we don't know for sure obviously, but it seems reasonable to me.

When the French introduced the metric system, they also introduced metric forms for time and degree measurement, the two places where sexigesimal is/was most firmly entrenched. The attempt was mostly abandoned.

Tobin Dax · #66 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Once we detach the #º from the year then it's free form. Why not 300º? Internal angles in a triangle then sum to 150º which divides nicely for an equilaterals & is also natural for a race with 5 fingers per hand.

Just how many hands do you have? The factor of 3 doesn't seem to fit with your reasoning.

We have 5 fingers on two hands. Why not 10º or 5º in a circle?
I can count from 1-12 using my two hands that have five fingers each. Can't you?
Of course, the natural thing to do for an race with any number of fingers is to use 3.14159º or 6.28319º in a circle.

Acolyte, you're arguing semantics based on different cultural thought processes. There is no right answer, no matter how much you want there to be one. This is how hheB keeps pointing out flaws in your new scheme.

Finally, sexagesimal math is something that practically everybody uses. I have this circular object on my wall that counts in base 60. It also counts in base 12, but that's done much more slowly. Shouldn't we use something other than 60 minutes per hour?

Delvo · #67 (**permalink**) 15-June-2008, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hhEb09'1

I also mentioned the isosceles right triangle. In that scheme, it would have 37 1/2 degrees

To be short and simple about it, there are more simple, easy ways to divide up 360 than to divide up the other suggested numbers, since the latter tend to have fewer distinct factors.

I don't know whether any still do or not, but engineers at one time (when my father was training to be one at Rolla in the early 1960s) had an angle-measurement system using "grads" instead of degrees or radians. (The word was probably made by smashing the other two words together and sweeping away the loose debris from the impact.) It can still be found on some calculators but not others. A right angle was 100 grads, so a circle was 400. This meant that division by three would get you a repeating decimal instead of an integer, but, as my father told it to me, this system was invented by engineers for engineers, and engineers LIKE their repeating decimals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hhEb09'1

When the French introduced the metric system, they also introduced metric forms for time and degree measurement, the two places where sexigesimal is/was most firmly entrenched. The attempt was mostly abandoned.

Probably because they couldn't even stop arguing among themselves over whether a metric year should have 100 days or 1000.

mugaliens · #68 (**permalink**) 16-June-2008, 12:33 AM

One major reason is that stock materials used in machining are still measured in fractions, such as a 3/4" drill bit, and 1/8" rolled steel.

Same goes for bolts, such as the 6-32 machine screw, in which the first number can be translated into a diameter using a formula, and the second number is the number of threads per inch (thus, each thread is 1/32" from the next). The formula for the diameter is:

d=(#*0.013")+0.060", where # is the first number of the machine screw.

Personally, I'd prefer the metric system, as you know exactly what you're getting. But what really complicates things is that there are more than a dozen drive heads out there, each size screw probably comes in most of them, if not all of them, and to really complicate matters there are thousands of various materials used and manufacturing methods, each of which yields vastly different results in terms of tensile strength, shear resistance, etc.

All of this is why engineers specialize and why most carpentry fasting techniques are mandated by code that's signed off by both engineers and architects.

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