28 ms·
Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009)
- steffan 6y agoBecause if they were hands, it would take 15,840 of them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_%28unit%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_%28unit%29
- 1-6 6y agoIt's not quite a highly composite number (HCN) but 5280 still has 48 divisors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number
- 1-6 6y agoIf Plato was still around, he would definitely push for 5040 it's a convenient number which can be divided many ways. For example, it would be a great number for the number of citizens in a state (polis). It has a massive 60 divisors. People were smart back then... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5040_(number)#:~:text=4%20Notes-,Philosophy,families)%20making%20up%20a%20polis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5040_(number)#:~:text=4%20Note....
- yread 6y agoIt is 4800 + 480 and has 48 divisors. Neat!
- tyingq 6y agoThere's certainly a lot of good background information here, but the basic answer of: "In 1592, Parliament set about determining the length of the mile and decided that each one should be made up of eight furlongs. Since a furlong was 660 feet, we ended up with a 5,280-foot mile." [1] Still seems right. Is there a nuance I'm missing that makes this more complicated? [1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25108/why-are-there-5280-feet-mile-making-sense-measurements#:~:text=In%201592%2C%20Parliament%20set%20about,with%20a%205%2C280-foot%20mile https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25108/why-are-there-5280.... Edit: Please note I'm not trying to be snarky. It just seems straightforward to me, so I'm trying to understand the long rant.
- BurningFrog 6y agoSo it's from government regulation!
- oblio 6y agoAt some point all measurement systems come from regulation. After all, that's one of the roles of a functioning state: provide a stable base for ownership (requires measuring surfaces, for land and buildings) and trade (requires measuring a ton of things, weight, length, surface, density, etc).
- protomyth 6y agoWell, the standard measurements were destroyed in the fire of 1834, so that probably affected the distance a bit.
- taeric 6y agoYes. And the article mentions this rather early. But continues to dive. Why was a furlong 660 feet? Why did parliament care in 1592?
- tyingq 6y agoFair enough, perhaps that's the point. I was just curious since the last action seems obvious and well documented.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoMarginally related: In 2020, the United States finally decided to adopt the International Foot (1959, 304.8 mm, based on the 914.4 mm yard / 25.4 mm inch) for land surveying, which is already the standard that's followed in all engineering disciplines apart from surveying. Now the historical US Survey Foot (1893) will soon been abolished for good. It's an interesting piece of news, but due to its horrible title, it'll probably never be voted to the homepage (a better title to me would be "The United States finally adopts International Foot, abolishes survey foot"). * America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196228 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196228
- ahupp 6y agoDoes that mean measurements need to specify which kind of foot they are using, in case they might predate the switchover?
- taejo 6y agoIt's not so much a switchover as the end of a switchover. The international foot was adopted in 1959, and everything since (at least in surveying) should specify (but often does not, which is one of the reasons the survey foot needs to be abolished)
- 1-6 6y agoThe US Survey foot is defined as 1200/3937 and the international survey foot is exactly 0.3048 meters. When taking data into applications such as Autodesk Civil 3D, you need to transpose Lat/Long GIS data into a flat Cartesian coordinate system. For example, X,Y values in California start in X=6,000,000 Y=2,000,000 which starts eating up floating point precision. Because 1200/3937 doesn't divide cleanly, you'll end up with varying values depending on where you cut off your precision. That's why Highly Composite Numbers are critical.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y agoUse fixed point?
- fermienrico 6y agoPeople talk about the Metric system, but if we didn't have 10 fingers and if we went with a Base 12 system from the dawn of time, we would have something much better than the Metric system. The duodecimal system is unique to the fact that the number 12 has more divisible factors than anything else that's manageable to count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal Inches/Feet are based on Duodecimal system, but since we use Arabic numerals (base 10), it's obvious why inches/feet aren't the way to go and why Metric system wins. There are still things that the rest of the world use Base 12 for - hours/minutes/seconds, 360 degrees, point font units, etc. The reason why America hasn't adopted Metric system despite of it being the official system in the law is the same reason why the rest of the world hasn't gotten around to changing time/degrees into a decimal equivalent. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to turn the ship, the US being a giant ship to turn. America also leads in determining standards for Metric system around the world - NIST with collaboration from European counterparts work together to establish these standards. Universities in US, semiconductor industry, medical industry, etc. use metric units. Engineers in the US know and use the metric system. If we didn't have Arabic numerals in Base 10, the American system is better :) * But since we are all stuck with arabic numerals, the Metric system is better! Edit: * I realized that its not that simple. Conceding this point, see responses. I was under the impression that most US units were consistent with base 12, but they're not - 1 lb = 16 oz (not 12) for example. A base 12 metric system would be ideal.
- spullara 6y agoThe metric system reminds of engineers doing UX.
- dirktheman 6y agoImperial system reminds of UX people doing engineering. With one system you actually get a working program, guess which one...
- anticensor 6y agometric
- m0zg 6y agoI thought it was like the rest of the Imperial system: just to fuck with people. No rhyme or reason at all. In my hobby work I use metric wherever I can, metric bolts, nuts, metric sizes. Sadly this is not possible with some electronic components where pin distances are in mils. My car (a BMW) is also set to metric and so is my home thermostat and phone. All the CAD and 3D modeling work I do is metric. The imperial system needs to go IMO. I've read that NASA has gone metric everywhere it could circa 2007. Do good engineering, be like NASA.
- brigandish 6y agoImperial is there because it's convenient to humans without tools. Sometimes you need precision, sometimes you need accuracy, and sometimes you need both. For completeness I'll say that sometimes you need neither, perhaps politicians know more about this last part. Using Imperial measures makes this clear - do you really need to know how big your field is to the millimetre? To the centimetre? A foot will do. My foot is, strangely (there's that British sarcasm again), a foot long. I can go into a field without tools and measure using my feet and be quite accurate. I programmed Ruby for years and it was always said that it was designed to work for the human over the computer, Imperial is much the same, as were the things like pre-decimal currency (I don't want 12 eggs, can you sell me one? Easy when I've 240d to divide into, not so easy with 100 pence). Use what's appropriate, don't wed yourself to decimal.
- cgrealy 6y agoYour foot is approximately a foot long. My stride is approximately 1 metre. Both are valid ways of roughly gauging distance, but only one is a sane system of measurement. And by the way, all imperial units are now defined in metric, which makes the conversion doubly insane.
- Jedd 6y agoIf your starting position is that eggs must be sold in sets of 12 only, then buying 1 will of course be more complex when using a base-10 currency. But in the same way that we can't switch to driving on the other side of the road over the space of a week, the UK can't spend a half century or so half-arsedly failing to commit to the metric system, and then complain that things don't make as much sense as they seem to in 95% of the world. Btw, is your foot precisely 12 inches, or is your shoe? I wonder, because it sounds dreadfully inconvenient to have to take your shoes and socks off when you want to measure a field. (I measure large distance by paces, which for me are roughly a metre.) I know that my hand span is 22cm, which has occasionally been quite handy when I'm without a tape or rule, and want to roughly measure something -- but that's not a compelling reason for me to advocate a base-11 measuring system. : )
- djhaskin987 6y agoA rod is 5.5 yards. A mile is 320 rods. A rod is 1/1000th of a league . A league is the distance a man could travel in about an hour and corresponds nearly to about 5k in today's measurements.
- dredmorbius 6y agoWhich suggests that seven-league boots would equate to speeds of about 110,000 mph. New York to San Francisco in about 90 seconds.
- edoceo 6y agoThose boots are for walking all day (eg: infantry) - not walking very fast.
- dredmorbius 6y agoYou seem to have something else in mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-league_boots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-league_boots
- edoceo 6y agoHuh, yea, TIL
- client4 6y agoI used to run a bar trivia at Lewis & Clark Brewery. I had diverse questions per round, and one of my favorite things to ask were obscure forms of measurement as the round "hard question", like how many gallons are in a bushel? (I generally also counted it right if it was close enough).
- JackFr 6y ago> Thus its claims cannot be checked against any other contemporary sources, which is particularly irksome since some of them appear highly dubious – such as stating that the army marched 20 miles in 5 summer hours at regular pace and 24 miles at double pace. The author provides this information and then never details what was meant by ‘summer hours’. Romans had twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness. That is to say, the daytime was simply divided into 12 hours, which made ‘summer hours’ significantly longer than winter hours (and longer than 60 minute hours.) Which also seems to make the quote more believable.
- fanf2 6y agoYes, daylight in Rome around the summer solstice lasts about 15 (modern standard) hours.
- Jedd 6y ago> The problem with these versions is that they don’t explain why this collision between furlong and mile occurred around 1600, and not centuries before. It implies, therefore, that people suddenly woke up and realized, hey, wait a second, if there’s 660 feet in a furlong … and eight furlongs in a mile … but 5000 feet in a mile …. wait a second !?! It's not that hard to guess why the broken system lasted so long (delightful and interesting explanation of TFA notwithstanding), and consequently why it was replaced by a different broken system. 95% of people on this planet use, understand, and advocate metric, in which an area of 100 metres x 100 metres = 1 hectare (10,000 sq m). A 10 x 10 grid of hectares = a square kilometre. A millimetre of rain falling across one hectare means you've received 10,000 litres of water. That volume of water has a mass of 10,000 kilograms (or 10 tonne). Wait a second, indeed!
- Flockster 6y agoSorry, but I fail to see the brocken system here.. Isn't the calculation true?
- rnestler 6y agoThey probably meant that the whole imperial system is still broken compared to the metric, but is still in use nevertheless.
- shuntress 6y agoI wouldn't call imperial measures "broken". I typically prefer imperial measures in simple projects because they tend do feel more practical. In things like woodwork, carpentry, papercraft, etc and inch, a foot, or a quarter inch tend to "fit" very well and are easily divided. Specifically with papercraft, I prefer working in inches over centimeters because inch, half inch, and quarter inch all essentially function as "full" units and are very easily divided/combined and tend to "fit" better with most projects. A half.inch tends to usually feel like a good margin. A few inches tends to work well for a card. A quarter inch generally seems right for a small spacing. That is significantly more useful to me than base-10 conversions because (for example) 1 inch and 1 half inch feels easier to keep in mind than 1 centimeter and 5 millimeters (or 1 centimeter and 1.5 centimeters).
- riffraff 6y agoThis immediately brought to mind the immortal words of Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman in "Good Omens", pertaining old british money: > It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.
- zhte415 6y agoDivisible by both 2 and 3, which decimal, well 10s, isn't. Archaic in today's deals of prices ending in 99 pence or cents, it made a lot of sense to have things easily divisible by both 2s and 3s, and fractions of such.
- dylan604 6y agoAgain, someone saying math by 10s is hard. Explain to me how moving the decimal point is hard. No dividing required. 1km = 1000m = 100000cm 1m = 5280ft = 63360in Yup, math by 10s is definitely harder
- gwd 6y ago> 1km = 1000m = 100000cm > 1m = 5280ft = 63360in How many times have you ever needed to know how many centimeters in a kilometer? Is that something you do a lot? On the other hand, suppose you have 1x1 km of land three children, and you want to divide the inheritance equally. What do you do? Give two of them 1km x 333.33m of land, and the oldest one 1km x 333.34m? If you were using miles and you had 1 x 1 mile of land, you could give each one exactly 1m x 1760ft of land.
- iso947 6y agoSo what if I have 100 acres of land and want to split it in three?
- orthoxerox 6y agoHow does the author jump from 1000 paces to 5000 feet so easily in the first section?
- benhurmarcel 6y agoLooks like the Roman defined a pace (two steps for a soldier) to be 5 feet. And a mile to be 1000 paces.
- dr_dshiv 6y agoWant the esoteric explanation for 5280 feet in a mile? From my favorite book ever, the Quadrivium [1]. 5280 feet in mile = 10x11x12x13 - 9x10x11x12 feet Radius of Earth = 11x360 miles Radius of Moon = 3x360 miles Radius of Earth + Radius of Moon = 1x2x3x4x5x6x7 = 7x8x9x10 miles ALL COINCIDENCES, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG :) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Quadrivium-Classical-Liberal-Geometry-Cosmology/dp/0802778135?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_marketplace https://www.amazon.com/Quadrivium-Classical-Liberal-Geometry...
- guerrilla 6y agoFascinating article. So, it seems that many civilizations used base-20 [1] but why do the Danes stop at 60? Does anyone think it could be related to whyever (still undetermined by the evidence) Babylonians used base-60? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigesimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigesimal
- timbit42 6y agoI don't know why 20 was popular but 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, and when multiplied by 5 equals 60, which is divisible by 20, of course. 30 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 5 as well, but is not divisible by 20, so 60 was preferred, perhaps.
- dirktheman 6y agoFun fact for all Americans who say "Our country is too big, changing to metric could never work here": Canada switched from Imperial to Metric between 1970 and 1985. Though in practice people you'll encounter people who will use both systems in one sentence... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Canada
- sumtechguy 6y agoMetric works in the US where it was practical and was cheap to switch out to use it. In many instances it does not really mater. In some instances it is historical (such as property and distance). Metric is also a historical thing. The US basically came along and mandated it for most other countries that had recently been destroyed in WW2. It was a good time to 'reset' and get things changed over. The US planned on doing it too but found other uses for the money allocated to do it. This sort of argument is the same as with CO2 emissions. When it is cheaper to switch over the US will do it. You will have to justify switching out billions of dollars worth of signage, inconveniencing millions of people to do it, millions of man hours to switch out docs and change one number from something to another, other than some notion of 'its better'. It can be done however, this is not a cheap thing people are asking for.
- perilunar 6y agoUnfortunately the US has to change from the United States customary system to Metric, not Imperial to Metric. This is much harder! /s
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vonmoltke 6y agoBased on the content of that article, and another post in this discussion[1], I don't think "Canada switched from Imperial to Metric between 1970 and 1985" is a fair statement at all. Canada tried but only partially succeeded, leaving it with a hodgepodge of metric and non-metric units. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24330792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24330792
- x87678r 6y agoCountries can be divided into two groups: * Those with the metric system * Those who have been to the moon.
- perilunar 6y agoCountries can be divided into two groups: * Those with the metric system * Those who used German scientists and engineers to get to the moon.
- jkingsbery 6y agoVery well written piece! My main quibble would be when the author goes into theological territory. There were attempts to translate the Bible into English and vernacular languages before Wycliffe, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_English https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_Engl..., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_in_the_Middle_Ages.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_in_the_Mi....
- krick 6y ago> At the time I tried to make some fixes to parts of the puzzle in Wikipedia, but they frequently rejected as OR (original research). This, frankly, bothers me way more than why there is 5280 feet in a mile. Wikipedia is the most brilliant in the concept, yet the most aggravatingly frustrating in details thing I know.
- w-m 6y agoI don't think it should bother you. It makes perfect sense for Wikipedia to focus on collecting established knowledge. I want my Wikipedia articles to contain the known facts, with citations and proven sources. I do not want theories or research of some individuals interspersed with the established facts.
- krick 6y agoI'm pretty sure nothing really should bother me, but it does. It makes me rage and hate Wikipedia mods with passion. Much of the "established knowledge" is bullshit quotes from the bullshit books that don't itself have any source references, yet obvious observations that require only basic calculations or are easily verifiable otherwise often "require citation". There are thousands of articles on some silly stuff like Harry Potter book characters & fantasy items, yet immensely notable music bands known to pretty much everyone listening to some "not too mainstream" genre are being deleted because they "lack notability". (A disclaimer: especially offensive cases of this kind of event weren't articles written by me, but, on the contrary, stuff I tried to learn about looking for it on Wikipedia, so it sure was notable enough to a user of Wikipedia, not only to an author of that article.) I am not against all these "Star Wars timeline" articles, by the way (although, I wish fantasy worlds with big enough fandom would have their own "sub-wiki", just so they have their own "namespace" referenced from the "general" wikipedia, so that some magical beast wouldn't be squatting on the name that is actually shared with some creature from the actual folklore, several geographic objects and a dozen of music bands). It just makes me angry how some people are eager to "keep wikipedia tidy and organized" by deleting actually important real-world stuff (often justified by "storing data is expensive"), while they obsess over listing all possible Pokemons on wikipedia or some shit like that. Now, this is only remotely related with the topic, which I agree is a serious and complicated issue, since we don't want to mix up random people fantasies with actually verified and established facts we could refer to. But the overall spirit of the issue I believe is the same, since in this particular case the subject seems to be explored by the author well enough, and people that protect wikipedia by keeping this kind of "original research" away may be right in some sense, but still are a problem I wish could be resolved somehow. (I don't know how, though.)
- amai 6y agoAnd that is why the US fought an Independence War: To not have to use these outdated imperial units by their oppressors. Wait a second...
- juped 6y agoIn a vacuum, it should be 5040, which has a uniquely abundant collection of factors. Still, natural evolution of units via surveyor's units did pretty well to turn the Roman mile of 5000 feet into 5280, which has a pretty solid collection of factors.
- 02020202 6y agothere are 5280 feet in a mile, because there are 8 elbows in a foot and 52 inches in one knee. don't you see? it makes perfect sense.
- sjwright 6y agoHonestly given how weird the imperial system is I’m genuinely surprised that miles can be expressed as an integer of feet. Was half expecting a 7/16th at the end.
- jandrese 6y ago> The number 20, of course, was the common “decimal” system prior to the invention of shoes (at which point you can’t see your toes). Is this true? It reads like a dad joke.
- JdeBP 6y agoThe invention of shoes doesn't really have anything to do with it, but vigesimal is a real thing, and does have the linguistic vestiges noted ("quatre vingts", "four score", et al.). Furthermore: A Troy ounce was 20 pennyweights. There are 20 Gebinde in a Strang. There were 20 maunds in a candy. 20 lyspond in a schippond. And so on. Enjoy https://archive.org/details/dictionnaireuni00dourgoog https://archive.org/details/dictionnaireuni00dourgoog .
- saalweachter 6y ago> Modern archaeological estimates of the actual Roman feet vary between 11.6 and 11.7 modern inches. Damn! If we'd settled on ~11.8 modern inches instead of 12 (well, if 12 inches were ~11.8 instead), we could have hit the 1 nanolightsecond ~exactly. Is anyone up for restandardizing on 1 nanolightsecond feet with decimalization and an informal 5000-foot mile that would line up very nicely with the Roman milles?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jmnicolas 6y agoTL;DR : Thank God for the Metric system!