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Why A4? – The Mathematical Beauty of Paper Size
- ktzar 4y agoThe metric system is such a beauty, that it's shocking that is not used everywhere. The fact that a liter of water has a relation with the size of the paper we use is just poetry.
- danielbln 4y agoThe three holdouts being the US, Myanmar and Liberia: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18300.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18300.jpeg
- sgjohnson 4y agoWhy does everyone forget the UK and Canada?
- anonymous_sorry 4y agoThe UK has adopted the metric system for most purposes, except for a few high-profile holdouts (speed limits and beer measures).
- sgjohnson 4y agoAnd area. It's not uncommon to see land sold by the acre or apartments by the square foot.
- midasuni 4y agoRare to see square foot only, but 108 square foot sounds bigger than 10 square meters, 2.7 acres sounds bigger than 1.1 hectares, so obviously salesmen are going to include those numbers.
- digestives 4y agoFilling up on fuel in litres and then using miles per (Imperial) gallon to measure fuel efficiency is wonderfully convoluted.
- gmac 4y agoIndeed. I suspect the driving and oil lobbies are keen to keep it that way, to help obscure the cost per unit distance and thus keep us all driving as far and burning as much gas/petrol/diesel as possible.
- midasuni 4y agoMiles per litre would be fine, even km per litre, but the metric way of measuring flips it over so bigger is worse rather than better, so it doesn’t catch on The numbers don’t work out too, “litres per 100km”. Why not millilitres per km (or litres per gigametre) I drive X miles (or X km), I then fill up with Y litres (or Y gallons) If I put 40 litres in my car and do 16 km per litre that’s 640km of range, simple calculation of 40x16 If I need to travel 260km at 20km/litre I need to but 260/20 litres or about 13 litres. If I put 40 litres in my 3.6 litre per 100 km my range is 40/3.6 = 11 x 100 = 1100km. If I need to do 260km at 3.6l/100km I need to do 260/100 = 2.6, times 3.6 = 9 litres. With the “metric” way you need to do two calculations. if you insist on using volume per length, I’d personally prefer 36ml/km, then I know I need 36x260 ml of fuel to go 260km, or my 40,000ml tank will take me 40000/36 = 1100km.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- doikor 4y ago> The numbers don’t work out too, “litres per 100km”. Why not millilitres per km (or litres per gigametre) > I drive X miles (or X km), I then fill up with Y litres (or Y gallons) This isn't what most use the liters per 100km for though. People just fill up whenever the light on the car tells them to. Mainly the number is used to compare cars when buying a new one. Some keep track of the actual consumption to notice if something is wrong with their car (just write down the current number on the odometer and how many liters you put in on some paper/app/whatever. you can do the actual calculations later) At least this has been my experience here in Finland.
- donedealomg 4y ago
- williamdclt 4y agoI dont think that's true. I see imperial much more than metric. Measures are much more common in inches, foot and miles than metric. Volumes are much more common in cups, gallons, pints than metric. Weights are more common in pounds and ounces than metric. That's in almost all domains, not just "a few high-profile holdouts" (even cooking, where it kills me that quantities of solids are in "cups" rather than grams...)
- anonymous_sorry 4y ago> Measures are much more common in inches, foot and miles than metric. I think this is partially true, particularly with the older generation. People often talk about their height in feet and inches, and their weight in stone and pounds. > Volumes are much more common in cups, gallons, pints than metric. Weights are more common in pounds and ounces than metric. Your experience seems to be very different to mine. To be honest I have no idea what a gallon even is, and no intuitive concept of an ounce. The only place I have ever seen measurements in "cups" is one chicken biryani recipe I found on an American website. (I agree it's bizarre: half a cup of mint leaves - wtf?!). Any recipe published in the UK in the last couple of decades tends to be in grams and millilitres. Example picked at random: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chocolate-courgette-cake https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chocolate-courgette-cake
- barnabee 4y agoSeems like this must vary a lot as my experience is very different. I rarely see/hear/use imperial outside pints and road signs, or for “sizes” like screen or clothing waist sizes, unless I’m talking to people a generation older than me (I’m 40). Every recipe site I use either has both or is entirely metric, and I only ever use metric. I’d probably look elsewhere if a search turned up a recipe in imperial only. Even distances are in KM outside of driving (because of the road signs). Pretty much everyone I know talks about their weight in KG. Heights do seem pretty split between cm and ft/inches but everyone understands both. Most liquids except beer and cider (including other alcohol like wine and spirits) are in litres and ml. It’s very obvious to me how metric-first life is for me because visiting America involves constant conversion and thinking whereas everything in other European countries (which are generally entirely metric) comes easily.
- DharmaPolice 4y agoMaybe officially but I don't know many people born in the UK who would give (when asked) their height in centimetres. Weight is a little more even split - using kilos is becoming more common but most conversations I have with people still use stone. The NHS's BMI calculator defaults to feet/inches and stones/pounds although you can switch to CM/KG.
- thrwyoilarticle 4y agoThe picture acknowledges both
- sgjohnson 4y agoNot Canada though, which is definitely more imperial than the UK.
- thrwyoilarticle 4y ago>In Canada, Australia, India and some other former Commonwealth countries vital statistics, living and commercial spaces, oven temperatures and recipe measurements might still be imperial.
- Milner08 4y agoBecause they are a weird middle ground. UK uses metric paper, metric weights and measures for _most_ things, metric temperature. Where Imperial starts to slip in is distance when driving (but not when running...), volumes of Beer and Milk (mainly cause we want more beer than 500ml) and body weight (where we use Stones, which is weird). There are probably some other things as well, but metric is the dominant system (for people under 60) for sure.
- sgjohnson 4y agoBut so is the United States. In all industries where it matters (science, technology, military, medicine) metric is virtually the only measurement system that's used, not to mention that a lot of products are sold in round metric quantities, not imperial.
- mcjiggerlog 4y agoThe difference is that in the UK nearly everything you interact with in your daily life is in metric. You won't find anything in a UK household in imperial measurements other than the bottle of milk in the fridge.
- timrichard 4y agoFor supermarket milk at least, I can only remember seeing both units for quite a while. I had a glance at the one in our fridge, and it says "2.272L 4 pints" on the label.
- Symbiote 4y agoThere is a huge difference. Ask an average American to give you the length of their car, size of their kitchen or weight of a brick in metric and they'll have no clue. The average British person can do this, because education has been metric for 50+ years and the least-technical industry (e.g. construction, DIY) is metric. (See e.g. https://www.diy.com/ https://www.diy.com/, the largest consumer-facing DIY shop in Britain. It's 20kg of 10mm gravel, doors in millimetres, paint in litres. I can't even see a button offering an imperial conversion.)
- dr_dshiv 4y agoYou mean minimemerica and America’s hat?
- bearmode 4y agoAll kids in the UK learn metric, and possibly some imperial (but only as a side thing). There are still things colloquially said in imperial, such as weight and height, but if you go to a doctor it will be in cm and kg. We're still a bit of a mishmash, but it's not as bad as it might seem from outside.
- _the_inflator 4y agoUK is also reversing in parts due to BREXIT.
- mickeyp 4y agoHardly. Britain's converting to metric -- one inch at a time.
- azatom 4y agoLike USA will begin in 2023!? I could hardly believe it when I heard it, it is barely three centuries away!
- xnorswap 4y agoIt isn't really. The government proposed a consultation on doing so, mostly as a distraction. I'd eat my hat if anything actually changes, the UK was (partially) metricated over 50 years ago, there's zero appetite for reversing it among people of working age and business concerns will dominate any serious consultation around changing legislation.
- sgjohnson 4y agoThere’s also 0 appetite for completing the metrication process.
- littlestymaar 4y agoInterestingly enough per wikipedia[1], Myanmar and Liberia uses the A4 format while not using the metric system. [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4_(format)#/media/Fichier:Prevalent_default_paper_size.svg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4_(format)#/media/Fichier:Pre...
- defrost 4y agoThe irony there being that the US was in fact one of the first early adopters of the metric system, metric being the official weights and measure system within the USofA and the US foot being literally defined in terms of the underlying base metre.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoAll imperial units have now been redefined in terms of metric.
- vidarh 4y agoNot just adopter: The US was one of the original 17 signatories of the Metre Convention in 1875.
- Nokinside 4y agoAccording to US law SI has been the preferred system of weights and measures for US trade and commerce". The transition was not mandatory, so nothing happened.
- Semaphor 4y agoIt’s like how they made yyyy-MM-dd the law in Germany for official communications. No one cared, so they changed it to make it optional when used within Germany or when there is no ambiguity a few years later :D
- ygra 4y agoDIN 5008 should be required reading for anyone ;-) I do care, though, and use ISO 8601 almost exclusively in writing. And I do know a few others. Perhaps things will change eventually.
- Semaphor 4y agoBy "no one", I meant those that were supposed to use it: Government officials ;) I personally use it as well, and so does my workplace, surprisingly.
- Ma8ee 4y agoWe have been using it in Sweden as long as I can remember.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoNothing happened because the US decided to elect Reagan and the plan was effectively shelved.
- nikanj 4y agoDon’t pretend UK and Canada are metric.
- tankenmate 4y agoThe UK is far closer to metric and will be even more so shortly, for anyone unaware most kids in the UK aren't even taught imperial units at school any more. There really are only vestigial units left; feet / inches for human height (but not for buildings for example), pints for liquids that are drunk (but not for hot water tanks for example), stone for human weight (but not for boxed items), etc. And for places like N. Ireland it's even less so, milk is sold in litres, etc because of the proximity to (Ro) Ireland (which now has its speed limits in km/h for example).
- Gordonjcp 4y agoMilk is sold in litres in the UK, it's really only beer that's sold in pints.
- avvt4avaw 4y agoThe most common sizes for milk to be sold in are 1.136 litres and 2.272 litres (i.e. 2 pints and 4 pints)
- Gordonjcp 4y agoWhere is that sold? I've never seen anything other than 500ml, 1l, and 2l.
- Symbiote 4y agoNormal supermarkets. If you only buy milk in multiples of 500mL, you're buying a luxury brand or from a corner shop -- both situations use the slightly smaller (vs 568mL) size to make the price seem lower. You can see at Tesco [1] that Yeo Valley, Arla, Cravendale, Finest, Tesco Filtered are all 1 or 2 litres. "Normal" milk is 2 or 4 pints. (The EU used to have regulations around this sort of thing, but I think they've unfortunately been repealed for most products. It's why bread was only sold in multiples of 400g -- it meant the merchant couldn't discreetly reduce the size of some/all products.) [1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/milk-butter-and-eggs/milk?shelf=Whole%20Milk&viewAll=shelf https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/milk-b...
- odiroot 4y agoUnfortunately UK still regularly mixes both systems. Plus pints and stone.
- geowwy 4y agoAlmost everywhere on earth mixes metric with some other system. Some places even mix metric, imperial, and some traditional pre-imperial system.
- ktzar 4y agoThat's not the case in the European and Southamerican countries I've visited or have acquaintances in. What countries do you have in mind? I'm quite interested.
- FreeFull 4y agoThe only thing I can think of is that screen diagonals are still measured in inches. Ignoring that, a lot of countries are definitely fully metric with regards to the basic length/weight/time measures
- Symbiote 4y agoYou can find occasional uses in many countries. TV screens are advertised in inches here in Denmark, although I noticed the last one I bought was "34 inch, 86.00cm" in the detailed specification -- the inches were just marketing. Old water pipes have some sort of pre-metric size. Several countries (e.g. France) use the word pound (livre) to mean 500g, which could confuse visitors into thinking something non-metric is being used. I noticed that in south America.
- Svip 4y agoNo one really does it any more, but "half-pound" (halvt pund) in Danish means 250g, which was the common way of ordering butter before the supermarkets took over (and why butter used[0] to come in packages of 250g). Similarly, in Sweden, one mile is 10 km. [0] These days, and selling butter in 200g packages to keep the prices seemingly low.
- donedealomg 4y ago
- tsm 4y agoI used letter-sized paper when I was a kid in Honduras, and if memory serves a number of people use US units.
- smcl 4y agoIt’s worth remembering that the UK can almost be counted in that group to some extent - road distance and speed as well as human height and weight are normally defined in imperial measurements. Additionally the Conservatives have proposed return to imperial measurements (though just as a pretty transparent appeal to the “back in my day…” crowd)
- mathieuh 4y agoI was watching a guitar repair video on YouTube this morning and the luthier referred to the action of the guitar as being "five-and-a-half sixty-fourths". This blew my mind.
- checkyoursudo 4y agoEasier than saying "five sixty-fourths and one one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth"
- pessimizer 4y agoI don't know how easy halving is genius when it comes to A4 paper, but somehow considered hopelessly convoluted when giving measurements in base 2.
- almostdigital 4y agoThis standard isn't part of the metric system though
- anonymous_sorry 4y agoNo, but the post mentions that A0 was chosen to have an area of one square metre. (Actually 0.999 square metres - you need a bit of fudge factor if you want sides in integer millimeters and a ratio of root 2)
- mkl 4y agoI'd say it's part of it in the sense that it's based completely on it. It's not a unit or set of units though.
- beefield 4y ago> The metric system is such a beauty, that it's shocking that is not used everywhere. You can check with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I think he nails it. The imperial system is much more natural for people to grasp. A pound is roughly a fist sized rock, but there are no natural objects that weight around one kilogram. And one yard is roughly the length of a step, completely unlike a meter. And so forth. /s Seriously, I propose a compromise. Europeans give up decimal comma and US gives up imperial measurements. Everyone wins.
- dunefox 4y ago> Europeans give up decimal comma Never!
- b112 4y agoFrom a Canadian comedy group, in the 80s, when we were transitioning to metric.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjFaKD9BuOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjFaKD9BuOc I can hardly wait for first contact, and the planet has to transition to some galactic standard...
- PostOnce 4y agoIs it shocking that the number of hours in a day or months in a year is not divisible by 10? Doesn't it make sense for some things to divide by 3 and 4, like a year, so that a season is 3 months long, instead of 2.5 months long (as in the old 10-month year system, ending in December)? Does it not make sense to use a human scale for certain things, like outdoor weather (as opposed to say, temperatures inside of machinery): In Fahrenheit: 0: very cold to people; 100: very hot to people. In Celsius: 0: not that cold; 100: I died 50 degrees ago. The metric system seems to me to be forced onto things where it does not fit, when in fact it's fine to use more than one system when contextually appropriate. After all, none of us think it weird to use bases 2, 10, or 16 for different things on our computers.
- t_mann 4y ago> Doesn't it make sense for some things to divide by 3 and 4, like a year, so that a season is 3 months long, instead of 2.5 months long (as in the old 10-month year system, ending in December)? The metric system also uses twelve months per year, so what is your point? > Does it not make sense to use a human scale for certain things, like outdoor weather (as opposed to say, temperatures inside of machinery): Yes, Fahrenheit works 'better' than Celsuis for describing weather temperatures. But it does arguably worse at pretty much everything else, including other everyday occurrences like cooking or washing clothes. As an aside, 12 would arguably be the better base for an everyday number system, but we are where we are (and contrary to what's commonly claimed, the imperial system isn't derived from base 12 either - 12 is used in a few places, but most proportions are historically grown and fairly random).
- CorrectHorseBat 4y agoIn Celcius, 0 water freezes, 100 water boils. Very convenient for weather and cooking. For the rest, what is hot weather or cold weather is very subjective, so I don't really see any use to define a scale on the base of that.
- bmitc 4y agoDo people actually directly measure boiling water? I've never seen that. It's a self-apparent phenomenon. I've never heard of anyone measuring anything while cooking where it matters which temperature scale they're using.
- Someone 4y ago> The fact that a liter of water has a relation with the size of the paper we use is just poetry. It’s not that there is a relation, it’s that it’s simple. If you put 288/187 inch of water on a standard letter paper, you get exactly one cubic foot of water, but I wouldn’t say “The fact that a cubic foot of water has a relation with the size of the paper we use is just poetry”. It also is a happy coincidence that the idea “if we cut a page in half, the two parts should have the same proportions” leads to usable paper sizes. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t have this system. And has this ever been tried for 3D, say in storage boxes? The proportions of a box would be about 1 : 5/4 : 25/16. That’s a bit cube-ish, but doesn’t look unusable to me.
- poorlyknit 4y agoThere's these storage boxes whose size is defined by the dimensions of an EUR-pallet [1]: https://euronormbehaelter.com/faq/arten-euronormbehaelter/ https://euronormbehaelter.com/faq/arten-euronormbehaelter/. Each smaller container divides some dimension by 2. However, I don't think they follow the golden ratio at all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet
- bmitc 4y agoBeauty doesn't necessarily mean practical in all cases. In all honesty, people who grew up with the metric system don't usually understand how practical Fahrenheit and other non-metric units often are (not always are). Are they hard to calculate with? Yes, sometimes. But they usually directly map to average human experience. For example, humans experience temperatures in the range of 0 - 100 degrees F most of the time. That's -17.8 - 37.78 degrees C. The Celsius range doesn't really make sense in the context of daily experience and is less fine-grained at that. Yes, 0-100 degrees C is freezing to boiling, but humans don't live in that range. The metric system is great for symmetry and calculations but that doesn't always map to practical quantities in those units, in my personal opinion. It's kind of funny when foreign friends will explain to me metric units, when I already know them, but they don't understand anything about non-metric units or their practicality. Edit: I should have known to make this comment, because it's going to get bikeshedded to death (already is). The summary of my point was to say that the metric system is perfect for calculations and representations, but the non-metric systems can often serve more practical purposes. Not always but often. In other words, for daily, non-engineering uses, there's really not much of a strong winner aside from people's country of origin. Even for paper, it's a toss-up for me. I find for notebooks, the A<x> sizes are nice and preferred by me, but US letter size is sometimes more preferred over A4 paper. A4 paper is nice for mathematical notes but can often get in the way of diagramming due to the narrowness. There just seems to be a superiority complex of those that use the metric system, but I don't really get it. Note the use of the word "shocking" in the comment I replied to. Edit 2: Commenting on scales really seems to grind some gears and gets people going. I'm okay with stating that the scales used for various measurements are fairly arbitrary in daily life and that there's pros and cons to both, but still disagree that it's shocking various places don't use the metric system. They certainly cause issues in engineering systems though.
- vanderZwan 4y agoYour subjective experience of temperature has three digits of precision? Because mine sure doesn't.
- happymellon 4y agoMy daily experience absolutely fits into the 0-50 range. 0C outside means the ground is hard to work with. 32F is such an arbitrary number when dealing is concrete reality outside.
- mojuba 4y agoAnother fun fact: meter was originally defined as a length of a pendulum whose half-period is one second. But wait for it. If you look at the pendulum formula [1] you will realize that g ≈ π^2 (i.e. 3.14^2 roughly equals 9.8) is not a coincidence, it's a consequence of the original definition of the meter! [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=pendulum+formula https://www.google.com/search?q=pendulum+formula
- talideon 4y agoThat isn't correct. The pendulum definition was actually something called a "universal toise". Burattini suggested defining a unit called the metre based off of this, but it was found to be unworkable because it's not the same everywhere. A toise is ~1.949m. The metre was _actually_ originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Obviously, that ended up having its own issues, hence the subsequent refinements until we settled on using the speed of light in a vacuum as the basis for it.
- mojuba 4y agoNothing in what I said is incorrect. The original scientific definition of the meter is via a pendulum (1645), then it was refined via toises multiple times, and today it's defined via speed of light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre
- irishsultan 4y agoNo, that's not correct, that unit while intended to be a universal measure of distance never was called a meter (the "inventor" wanted to call it "toise universalle"), all that comes from the wikipedia page you linked to, so the only remaining question is whether you can call it the "original definition". I don't think you can call it the original definition, because (a) that definition never got any universal acceptance (not even among scientists), (b) didn't work (as it gave different results on different locations) and (c) wasn't particularly close in value to the current definition.
- smusamashah 4y agoHow does this size have anything to do with the metric system, it could have been any units of length with same ratio.
- treffer 4y agoFrom the article: A0 is designed to be as close to 1m² as you can get with whole mm side lengths. As such A1 is 1/2 m², A2 is 1/4 m², A3 1/8 m², A4 is 1/16 m². I would call this tied to the metrics system. It never occurred to me that I could approximate odd 1m² areas with 16 sheets of A4... I found this enlightening from the original article. TIL.
- petepete 4y agoWould recommend the documentary Precision: The Measure of All Things by Marcus du Sautoy. It's no longer on iPlayer but thankfully someone's uploaded it to YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g81opjVDAaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g81opjVDAaA
- coldtea 4y agoI could perhaps understand the use of fahrenheit for temperature - I'm not used to it, but people say the changes in different temperature degrees are more like how we perceive them (perhaps temperature is like some things like sound level that we perceive logarithmically, and ferenheit maps better to it [1]). Not sure if this is valid (celsius looks fine to me) but if it is, sure, fahrenheit makes sense. But for the rest, like distance and weight? What the fuck?! [1] I'm not claiming we do perceive temperature logarithmically - just making an analogy with another case (sound) in which we don't use a straight linear relationship because it doesn't match our intuitive perception (e.g. of volume "doubling").
- Aaronmacaron 4y agoWhat do you mean? Fahrenheit is not logarithmic. The conversion function from Fahrenheit to Celsius is literallay a linear function: c(f) = f(5/9) - (160/9)
- coldtea 4y ago>What do you mean? Fahrenheit is not logarithmic. It's not like I didn't explicitly cover that: "I'm not claiming we do perceive temperature logarithmically - just making an analogy with another case (sound) in which we don't use a straight linear relationship because it doesn't match our intuitive perception (e.g. of volume "doubling")." So, no, I'm not saying temperature perception is logarithmic and Fahrenheit is logarithmic to match it. I'm just saying that similarly to how dB suits sound perception better (because it's logarithmic and more appropriate to our logarithmic perception of volume), fahrenheit might fit intuitive temperature perception better (because it's more appropriate to our perception of temperature). Actually, I'm not even saying this is the case. Just that I've read and heard people claim that, so it could be (I'm not from a fahrenheit using country, so can't speal for how it intuitively feels), for one example: https://thevane.gawker.com/fahrenheit-is-a-better-temperature-scale-than-celsius-1691707793 https://thevane.gawker.com/fahrenheit-is-a-better-temperatur...
- dev_tty01 4y agoFahrenheit is nice because the normal range of temps for most climates that humans generally prefer to inhabit is about 0 to 100. Over 100 starts to be dangerous to humans without some form of cooling, evaporative or otherwise. 0 F (-18 C) is about as cold a temp as most (not all) people would want to live in. Ironically, viewed from that perspective, Fahrenheit gives typical temps a nice powers of ten framework, which is normally one of the great advantages of metric systems. Celsius fails in this regard, going from -18 C to 28 C for the same range. Less precision and no intuitive decimal framework. On the other hand, I completely agree that the rest of the non-metric measurements are just a mess. However, the binary nature of cups, pints, quarts, half gallons, and gallons are kind of quaint I suppose.
- samatman 4y agoShame this comment is floating to the top, for a few reasons. First: The DIN paper standards aren't a part of the metric system. They are a use of the metric system. Second, the important part: what makes A series paper cool (truly one of my favorite standards) is a ratio, these are by definition independent of metric. One can imagine a paper standard based on 36 inches, rather than 1 meter, which would have all of the good properties of A and B series paper. The third reason is that the imperial measurement system is also an application of the metric system. But others have covered that already. It's an ongoing source of amusement to me that people fluent in just one system of measurement look down on a continent of hundreds of millions whose educated class is fluent in both.
- twelvechairs 4y agoAlso the metre is a weird unit to use as a base. It is based on an incorrect 17th C estimation of the circumfrence of the earth and is now standardised as some weird fraction of the distance light travels in a vacuum in a second (a second itself being based on a weird fraction of transitions in a stable form of Cesium atom) A foot is at least something very closely aligned across many cultures (from ancient Egypt to Japan) because of because of its clear and useful relationship to human scale and building products
- perilunar 4y ago> based on an incorrect 17th C estimation of the circumfrence of the earth Incorrect? It's pretty bloody close for 1793 — The error is less than 0.02% !
- iggldiggl 4y ago> A foot is at least something very closely aligned Hmm, the largest historic European foot listed on the corresponding Wikipedia page is almost 30 % larger than the smallest foot. So while they indeed all are somewhere roughly 30 cm-ish long, after a few feet those differences will still add up considerably…
- Theodores 4y agoI was a staunch advocate of the metric system, however, I am not the 'fanboy' I once was. It all makes sense and seems really clever when you are at school with your little ruler with those weird inch things on the unused side. I could bark at any adult daring to use an outlawed measurement unit, to put them in their place. To a certain extent we do that with Americans and their usage of 'weird' units that make no sense to people outside of the UK. However, as I have got older, I have learned to appreciate why these quaint measurements have survived the test of time. For example the 0.1 inch pitch spacing of integrated circuits is a gentle reminder that Americans pioneered and invented all of this stuff and that, despite the politics and sentiment of the time, some respect is deserved for the non-metric giant shoulders we stand on. Every British person knows what a metre is but most British people will give their height in feet and inches. Ask those people what their height is in metres and your guess is as good as mine. Weight has made a slow transition to kilograms in the UK. Stone is still a measurement. But when an American describes weight in pounds the average British person has not the foggiest. I find more beauty in the vernacular measurements and I can play devil's advocate - 'Metric is French Napoleon conquest bad'. Nowadays we have electronic gadgets to do the simplest arithmetic. Nobody does long division on paper these days. They don't even have a pen. The benefits of the decimal system are somewhat moot. I can see why base 12 measurements stick around but no idea why base 14 is a thing. Anyway, couldn't the A4 problem have been solved with non square pixels?
- timbit42 4y agoIt would be much more beautiful if it were based on 12 instead of 10. Of course, this would require humanity to switch to dozenal, which will never happen unless almost everyone dies and someone enforces it on the few that remain to repopulate the planet.
- andruby 4y agoCould you expand why base-12 is more beautiful than base-10? Is it because it has more divisors? If so, why not base-2?
- irrational 4y agoNot worth getting worked up over. We will all be dead long before the USA widely uses the metric system.
- kasperni 4y agoA map of paper size usage throughout the world: https://vividmaps.com/paper-sizes-world-map/ https://vividmaps.com/paper-sizes-world-map/
- layer8 4y agoI wondered whether the fjords use US letter, at first. ;)
- aeyes 4y agoI wish it was like this. Some countries have two standardized sizes where certain documents are in "US letter" and others in "US legal" format depending on the institution.
- masklinn 4y ago> Some countries have two standardized sizes where certain documents are in "US letter" and others in "US legal" format depending on the institution. To be fair it used to be even worse, as the fed used to use demitab (8x10.5).
- bornfreddy 4y ago> A4 is 1/24 m2, so a sheet of 80gsm paper in A4 size weighs exactly 80/24 or 5g. I hope they were more precise with the maps than they were with the calculations (A4 is 1/16 m2, and then 80/16=5). :)
- hazn 4y agoBeautiful (in an educational sense and in a visual sense) CGP Grey video on metric paper: https://youtu.be/pUF5esTscZI https://youtu.be/pUF5esTscZI
- jcynix 4y agoCool animation, as almost always by CGP Grey. Reminds me of the book "Powers of Ten" by Philip and Phylis Morrison, published in 1982 ("Scientific American Books")
- mkl 4y agoPowers of Ten was also a 1977 short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 (Duplicating my own comment from a few months ago.)
- anonymfus 4y agoIn the Director's Commentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lyN6Qg8VQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lyN6Qg8VQ4 ) CGP Grey said that it was directly inspired by the video version of "Powers of Ten".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Orthanc 4y agoGlad you liked it!
- user_7832 4y agoAre you really CGP Grey? If so, thank you for your high quality videos! (Science) educators like you make YouTube and the internet a better place :) (Ooh, I had a quick question if you don't mind - how did you get into animating the videos in the beginning? I'm also hoping to make sciencey/educational/technical videos on YouTube but I don't have any animation/software experience. Right now I'm just planning to draw static images/diagrams on my iPad and use that for the video, like a slideshow.)
- avnigo 4y agoI can't not share this excellent video on the subject by CGP Grey on "metric paper": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI
- jagrsw 4y agoIt's interesting that the human scale is (logarithmically) in the middle between the plank distance and the size of the observable universe.
- dtx1 4y agoA0 ≈ 1 m² was new to me but makes perfect sense. Imagine a world where the makers of USB used a similarly elegant naming convention.
- happymellon 4y agoA1 should be ≈1m for it to be elegant.
- dtx1 4y agoA0 = 0 folds of 1m². A1 = 1 fold, ... Though maybe we could have A3.1 Gen 2x2 for thick blue paper with glossy texture folded 4 times but 2 of those folds weren't down the middle.
- happymellon 4y agoOh I completely get that 0 = 0 folds, but if we are comparing square meters then A1 is 1 square meter. It depends on your point of view on what you are comparing.
- ajuc 4y agoA0 area = 0.5^0 = 1 m^2 A1 area = 0.5^1 = 0.5 m^2 A2 area = 0.5^2 = 0.25 m^2 A3 area = 0.5^3 = 0.125 m^2 If it was your way A1 area = 1 m^2 A2 area = 0.5 = 0.5 ^ (2-1) m^2 A3 area = 0.25 = 0.5 ^ (3-1) m^2 Why shift it one way just to shift it the other way in the formula?
- Infernal 4y agoIf you want to fit the area into the name you can think of it as A0 = 1/(2^0) m^2 A1 = 1/(2^1) m^2 A2 = 1/(2^2) m^2 And so on (EDIT for formatting and also to observe a sibling post to mine is making the same point)
- Symbiote 4y agoNo, because 2⁰ = 1. Paper weight is measure in grammes per square metre. 80gsm is typical for ordinary paper. A0 = 2⁰ m² = 1 m² → 80g A1 = 2¯¹ m² = 0.5 m² → 40g ... A4 = 2¯⁴ m² = 0.0625 m² → 5g (Fixed typo, thanks.)
- genezeta 4y agoThere is a secondary series, B, in which the base size, B0, -instead of being defined for its area of 1 square meter as is A0- is defined to be 1 meter wide. A series is then 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc square meters, while B is 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc meters wide. It's not as common as the A series but it's used occasionally and it offers intermediate sizes between those of the A series.
- Ekaros 4y agoAnd then you have the C series. Mainly envelopes that are mean between A and B thus fitting the A reasonably inside.
- genezeta 4y agoYes, but that is really rarely used -at least around here-. Most envelopes nowadays have opted for different factors. Usually you fold an A4 in thirds on the longer side and use an 110x220 envelope.
- Symbiote 4y agoNearly all letters I get are in C5 envelopes, i.e. A4 folded in half. But Denmark is so electronic that "nearly all" is about one a month. Folding in thirds isn't worth the bother when I post things so infrequently. Choosing a large British supermarket, they have C4, C5 and C6 sizes, plus DL (A4 in thirds) which are cheapest: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=envelopes https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=envelopes
- shakesbeard 4y agoSame in Switzerland. Almost all letters are A4 folded in half inside a C5 envelope.
- throw0101c 4y ago> The dimensions of DL [size] are 110 x 220 mm (4⅓" x 8⅔") and as such the DL envelope will hold an A4 sheet of paper folded into 3 equal sections parallel to its shortest sides. * https://www.papersizes.org/c-envelope-sizes.htm https://www.papersizes.org/c-envelope-sizes.htm * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmBvP0KOZP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmBvP0KOZP0
- thrdbndndn 4y agoThe fact A-series has a sqrt(2) radio is obviously neat on its own, but does it save material, or have much benefit in general in practice? My (very limited) experience in printing seems to be 1) they still trim tons of bleed regardless; 2) the fact you can cut A3 into two A4 etc. is great, but doesn't really matter when 99% of the printing paper will be just one size (A4) anyway? 3) Lots of magazines and books use non-standard sizes. Disclaimer: I'm from a metric country. This is a genuine question, not in anyway trying to make excuses for The US' letter size or what not.
- tankenmate 4y agoIt saves a lot of resources on the supply side, not on the consumption side. So it does lead to lower prices for consumers, just indirectly.
- thrdbndndn 4y agoSorry I wasn't clear. My point is that, since majority of the demand is A4/letter, in letter's case, they can still use certain size of big rectangular paper and cut them into letter. The fact these larger paper can't be cut into other shapes doesn't really matter on supply side because they're not going to. If they need some other odd shaped papers, just like metric B-series, they do that separately.
- pornel 4y agoMass printing isn’t done on A4 directly. It’s done on printing machines of a larger size and then cut and folded as needed.
- thrdbndndn 4y agoI get that, I'm saying that precisely will make the size of a single page (A4 or letter) or its ratio irrelevant in practice.
- 4y ago
- jstanley 4y agoThe article makes these 2 contradictory claims: > I can tell you now it is precisely 210mm by 297mm > So the only ratio that has this important property is the square root of 2, famously – and ironically in this case – not a ratio I suspect either: - A4 paper is not precisely 210x297 mm, or - the precision of the ratio has been sacrificed in order to allow integer numbers; but if we're willing to make that sacrifice, why not round up to 212x300 mm? and then we can have the nice round number that the classmate wanted in the first place, with a bonus that both dimensions are even-numbered so can be halved with mm-graduated rulers.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DominikPeters 4y agoA4 paper is precisely 210x297mm (according to the standard), so the aspect ratio deviates from 1:sqrt(2) a little. Following that aspect ratio, the size would be 210x296.985..mm, so the rounding is really very slight.
- jwilk 4y agoHow exactly is it defined in the standard? Is there a formula? Or just a list of sizes for A0, A1, etc.? I wanted to read the standard myself, but CHF 58 is a bit too much: https://www.iso.org/standard/36631.html https://www.iso.org/standard/36631.html
- justsomehnguy 4y agoy : x = √2 : 1 = 1,414 http://www.ikserang.com/qa/ISO_PAPER_BOARD/standards/en/iso_216_2007.pdf http://www.ikserang.com/qa/ISO_PAPER_BOARD/standards/en/iso_...
- DominikPeters 4y agoThis seems to be a sample containing the relevant parts. https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/36631/c0883203ea25445c9992bb09343620c5/ISO-216-2007.pdf https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/36631/c0883203ea25445c...
- WesolyKubeczek 4y ago[curses in Tschichold]
- c7b 4y agoBeautiful! One more thing to add re A4 vs letter size: A4 is also a better approximation of the 'golden ratio', so supposedly more aesthetically pleasing (though neither is a particularly good approximation, which shouldn't surprise since A4 is an approximation of sqrt(2) not (1+sqrt(5))/2).
- mavu 4y agoThis is very cool.
- w4rh4wk5 4y agoWhile I really appreciate the fact that you can split an A4 sheet and get two A5 sheets. Even as a European, I always felt like the American letter format feels 'nicer'. I feel like the letter format's ratio works better for taking notes in a notebook or browsing through printed pages -- less tall, but wider than A4. Anyone made a similar experience?
- puzzledobserver 4y agoI agree. The American reluctance to metric units is strange and I appreciate the mathematical elegance of ISO paper sizes, but letter paper just feels more pleasant on the eyes than A4.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> American reluctance to metric units Reluctance is too strong a word. In the US we use metric for quite a lot of measurements. Frequently things are labeled in both metric and imperial. What we have is ambivalence. Folks from countries with more metric adoption care way, way more about the US using imperial than anyone in the US does.
- chadlavi 4y agoI dunno about ambivalent. Tell a US person it's 30° outside in the summer and at best they'll give you a blank stare, at worst they'll say "well no it's gotta be warmer than that out." They don't learn it, so no one uses it. If schools taught it then it might catch on. The food labeling stuff is for regulatory reasons, the only metric units US people actually use are liters for beverages.
- KingOfCoders 4y agoI do think A4 is too wide for note taking, I almost always use two columns.
- xxs 4y agoso A5?
- Jedd 4y ago
- Freak_NL 4y agoThe ubiquity of B5 notebooks (and just B5 paper in general) is one of the things I love about Japan. I don't mind having A5 and A4 around, but I'm not too fond of A4 being the default printer paper size.
- wartijn_ 4y agoOh, I didn't know about B5. I knew B size papers exist, but never looked into it. Will definitely look at B5 notepad next time I'll need to buy a new one, because like you I think A5 is a bit too small and A4 too big.
- iNerdier 4y agoAnd yet all photo print sizes, even internationally are defined in inches. Sigh.
- em-bee 4y agokodak's influence i guess
- School-Cotton 4y ago[flagged]
- santimoller66 4y ago[dead]
- gennarro 4y agoHere is another good explainer which might be a bit easier to parse: https://unsharpen.com/paper-sizes/ https://unsharpen.com/paper-sizes/ Minor side point, I’ve never seen an x written as )( but always as / and then \ (or vice versa). I wonder if this is a regional thing ir just one person’s preference.
- Symbiote 4y agox is usually written 𝑥 in mathematics (including handwriting) to distinguish it from ×. I was taught the ")(" way at primary school.
- nautilius 4y agoJust because you use it doesn't make it in any way 'usual'. Just because you learned it in some school doesn't make it non-regional. Also, your own example "𝑥" is decidedly not of the )( form, but of the × form.
- Symbiote 4y agoYou might have read my comment more carefully before resorting to a snarky reply.
- nautilius 4y agoSorry, I mistakenly thought you replied to the post you posted your post under. My bad.
- SamBam 4y agoDoing an image search for "handwritten algebra" I find quite a few examples of ")(". "I was taught the ")(" way at primary school" is a perfectly reasonable response to your question, which wondered whether it was just one person's preference. That answer tells you it isn't. Nowhere did the reply suggest it wasn't regional, nor, for that matter, that "/ \" isn't regional. Both are presumably regional, but whether one is more common requires a fair bit of work to answer.
- TacticalCoder 4y agoA4 is so ubiquitous around me (Europe) that, no matter its merits or not, it's really a major PITA when you get documents that are not A4. They don't line up nicely with the A4 stuff. They don't go gently in the A4 folders / sleeves / pockets / ring binders (files) / etc. Typical offenders in my case are medical bills printed on dot-matrix printers. I don't even know if there's perforated continuous stationery/form paper with tractor holes that, once you strip the holes, is A4 sized? I guess it's really uncommon if it exists for I don't ever recall seeing any actually used. Now don't get me wrong: hearing the song of a dot-matrix printer makes me happy (brings back lots of memories as my first printer was a dot-matrix one) and it's nice that that tech is still in use here and there. I just wish the dot-matrix printers in Europe would use A4 continuous paper (which may or may not even exist). And don't get me started on oversized continuous paper that is not perforated: this is the kind of stuff that can trigger obsessive-compulsive disorder! I guess all this rant to say that even in Europe, where A4 is ubiquitous, you still have places using other sizes than A3/A4/A5 etc.
- Ayesh 4y agoI had this problem too, with majority of documents being A4, but a single bank/med bill ruins the rest of the stack. My solution was to just give up on keeping the documents unless I have to, for legal/tax purposes, and just digitally archive them. Modern scanner apps are super good, and the OCR/search features make the 20 seconds it takes to scan it and throw away the paper.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoHonest question: why do you archive things you don’t have to archive?
- samwillis 4y agoThe article sadly misses the root of the An sizes. A0 has an area of 1m^2, setting its dimensions and defining the rest of the sizes. Quite genius! The B sizes start at B0 with a length on the short side of 1m, then follow the same pattern. The C sizes, often used for envelopes, are defined as the geometric mean between the equivalent A and B size. As a child of an architect, when I was a kid my dad would bring old A0 drawings home as paper we could draw and paint on the back of. Loved it. - Edit: it does mention it, I skimmed it too fast…
- tiagod 4y ago> As a child of an architect, when I was a kid my dad would bring old A0 drawings home as paper we could draw and paint on the back of. Loved it. You brought me memories of being a very small kid drawing on A0 roll scraps bigger than me on the floor of my parents' studio :)
- samwillis 4y agoThose cardboard tubes the A0 drawings where stored in were brilliant for building stuff with, and even more fun as a later teenager having parties - stick one end in a fire pit and they become fire cannons, a good 4-5ft of flame out the top…
- ricardobeat 4y agoIt mentions A0, the 1sqm area, then goes into paper weights. You might have accidentally skipped that section.
- HPsquared 4y agoIt's pretty handy that 1 A4 sheet at 80gsm weighs 5 grams (A4 sheet area: 1/(2^4) = 1/16 of a square metre) * (standard paper weight of 80 grams per square metre) = (5 grams per A4 80gsm sheet). Would have been useful for calculating postage.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
- spaintech 4y agoSure there is math behind it, I was at a paper factory once, I asked them about the whole A0 and so forth sizing, I was told in prefect german and translated that originally they made 1M^2 sheet (alle) and they would them take those and cut them by halfs, so when an order came in, it would read Alle/2 Alle/4 a so forth since they would then say take this pile to A, A2 and A4 cutting station. Who knows, but that is what the Aschaffenburg guide tolde me back in 1998, been telling everyone that story since… :/
- mihaaly 4y agoSo A1 is half of 'Alle', so Alle/2, no? A2 is Alle/4 and so on, making A4 Alle/16?
- solidsnack9000 4y agoMaybe it's the number of levels down the tree of cuts. With one cut, it's A1; cut the results one more time to get A2; cut the results one more time to get A3; &c.
- anomas01010 4y agoanomas01010
- CHB0403085482 4y agoA4 is metric paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI
- Aeolun 4y agoI never realized this, but I’m glad I learned why this is. It’s the kind of thing that you always wonder about but never seriously investigate. You could go a whole lifetime without knowing…
- jcynix 4y agoThe international paper size standard is ISO 216. It is based on the German DIN 476 standard for paper sizes. This standard was designed by the German engineer and mathematician Walter Porstmann in 1922. Cf https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Porstmann https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Porstmann
- impendia 4y agoThe ISO will charge you 58 CHF (equivalent to 59 USD) to read the standard. https://www.iso.org/standard/36631.html https://www.iso.org/standard/36631.html I can't help but feel a perverse pleasure that the US refuses to switch.
- magnio 4y agoIf only the US didn't use C because it costs 198 CHF to read the standard.
- zymhan 4y agoI pity the fool still programming in ANSI C
- layer8 4y agoAnd ANSI will charge you $68 [1] to read the US paper sizes standard [2]. [1] https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ASME/ASMEY142020 https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ASME/ASMEY142020 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI/ASME_Y14.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI/ASME_Y14.1
- nautilius 4y agoPfft, have you tried accessing any standard here? (ASME, IEEE, etc.) That perverse pleasure must be masochism.
- account42 4y agoTo be fair, charging for standards like these is pretty silly when the goal should be to have them adopted as widely and correctly as possible. Standards organizations need funding but as something that benefits pretty much everyone there is no reason not to fund them from taxes. Doubly so with digital distribution where the marginal cost of someone viewing a standard is ~0.
- frogpelt 4y agoI love this little fact but stating, "It is possibly one of the greatest innovations of the 18th century" is ridiculous hyperbole. Or maybe the 18th century was severely lacking in innovations.
- rvba 4y agoI wish EU would force the manufacturers to advertise phone and TV screen sizes in centimeters, not inches.
- beAbU 4y agoIt's not going to be helpful anyway, because the size is measured in diagonals, and it's quite difficult to imagine how large a screen is if you only have the diagonals. If, instead, we had height and width, I can roughly use my body to estimate screen size. Last time I bought a TV I had to tape out its size on my wall to get a better understanding of its size relative to the size of my living room.
- jbverschoor 4y agoUS legal is way better suited for reading. Or the comic-book format
- jeff-davis 4y agoThe article never mentions why folding in half is a good thing. It is, of course, but why half, and not fifths? The reason is that two is a good factor to work with. Multiplying and dividing by two is more common than by five in a lot of domains. Three is pretty useful also. But the metric system is based on ten, which has factors two and five. Five is not such a great factor and often creates awkward numbers when dividing by two or three. The US measurement system, while inconsistent and arbitrary in many ways, but handles factors of two a lot better. Two cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon. Better would be to have a consistent measurement system in base 12. Two twos and a three are a nice set of factors to work with. And twelve is still a nice "order of magnitude" that gives a good sense of scale. When it comes to distances, feet are actually pretty good in this regard. Degrees and time are base 60, which includes an extra five factor, so I guess it's combining all of them. The non-US world is smug about A4 and the metric system, but the very reasons that A4 is good shows why the metric system is not quite as brilliant as people like to think it is. (Obviously standardization and consistency have value, too. The metric system is good in that regard.)
- katbyte 4y agoall seems more complicated then just dropping down a unit in metric and doing whatever maths you need, without dealing won’t fractions or weird units.
- throwaway744678 4y agoSheets of paper are not used to measure or calculate things, unlike the metric system.
- monopoliessuck 4y agoI agree with you, but think 16 would be a better base than 12 as it's binary reducible all the way down. It doesn't have a factor of three, which can be useful, but being able to natively understand and do math in a hex base would be such a boon, especially in the computer era. The Babylonians base 60 was quite a practical decision we partially inherited, but the metric 10 and Aztec 20 were probably just cavemen looking at their fingers (and toes). If you use your thumb to index the interphalangeal joints of your hand, you also get 16 which is super slick. A4 is a nice standard, but we really missed out on realizing base 16 metric.
- z3t4 4y agoI'm still waiting for a thin low weight A4 size eink reader
- kazinator 4y ago210x297 offers a better approximation than 212x300.
- samloveshummus 4y agoI had a major epiphany deriving this myself as a teenager, because it was the first time I used algebra to calculate something "real". The equation was trivial, but the principle of mathematical modelling struck me like lightning. In an instant the world felt more comprehensible and tractable, I suddenly felt like Neo seeing the Matrix.
- dbelford 4y agoAre there fields (architects, engineers?) that take advantage of the the technical pen scaling? Or scanning software that is aware of the pen/paper ratios? This seems like a great way to have some consistency in analog/digital conversions. It would be nice to have 10 years of digitized notes that all have consistent sizing after scanning.
- Symbiote 4y agoArchitects and engineers certainly used to. Most engineering drawings are printed now, but presumably occasional modifications are still made by hand.
- dbelford 4y agoIn another comment you mentioned easy scaling in a photocopier. And cylinder714 linked to a description of iso-paper that mentions an ISO (ISO 9175-1) for pens. Is there a term or place to search for pens sets that scale with A*/B* paper? Using the ISO or "technical pen" doesn't return obvious matches (from my US based search at least).
- Symbiote 4y agoI searched "ISO drafting pens" and had several results, although none from the US or Canada. Wikipedia lists some manufacturers, and here are some online shops from my first couple of pages of results. I've never used the steel nibbed pens. My grandfather was a draughtsman, and had a complete set, but as I understood it (age 10-ish) they were delicate and needed to be used carefully. I wouldn't buy a complete set on a whim :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_pen https://www.rotring.com/pens-pencils/technical-pens/isograph-drawing-pen/SAP_1903395.html https://www.rotring.com/pens-pencils/technical-pens/isograph... https://www.staedtler.com/intl/en/products/technical-drawing-instruments/technical-pens-drawing-ink/ https://www.staedtler.com/intl/en/products/technical-drawing... https://draftex.com.au/collection/pens-markers-inks/technical-drafting-pens https://draftex.com.au/collection/pens-markers-inks/technica... https://www.faber-castell.eu/products/TechnicalDrawingPenTG1S10mm/160001 https://www.faber-castell.eu/products/TechnicalDrawingPenTG1... (There were also Indian websites, so I'll bet there's China/Aliexpress too.)
- davelondon 4y agoThe same size relationship is for Euro stacking containers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_container https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_container
- 2143 4y ago> 80 gsm (grams per square metre) paper at A0 size weighs precisely 80g. A4 paper at that density therefore weighs 5g since it’s been halved 4 times So when they mark the gsm number onto a ream of A4 sheets, is 80 the gsm of A0 or A4? Excellent article by the way. Thank you.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cafeinux 4y agoBoth. A 80 gsm ( = grams per square meter)A4 sheet has the same density as a 80 gsm A0 sheet (80 gsm= 80 gsm) but only 1/16th its weight (5g = 1/16×80g) since it only has 1/16th its area.
- masklinn 4y ago> So when they mark the gsm number onto a ream of A4 sheets, is 80 the gsm of A0 or A4? It's the same thing, since it's the grams per square meter. A0 is 1sqm by definition, and if you tile A4s until you have 1sqm of it, you get A0 (at least if you double through the small side every time: A4 -> A3 -> A2 -> A1 -> A0)
- pottertheotter 4y agoIf you moved from Europe to the US (or vice versa), I'm curious what your thoughts are on using A4 vs US letter? And I mean once you were settled and transitioned to using the other standard, did you find yourself thinking one was better than the other? Another way of asking this is, if you could magically make it so that everyone had been using and today used one of the two (A4 or US letter), would it matter to you?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- codethief 4y ago> A4 vs US letter I (European) spent some time in the US in the past and, while I understand why many people prefer A4, I found one major advantage of the US letter format: It is, like so many things in America, bigger. Very useful if you have to write down equations!
- Beltalowda 4y agoIt's slightly wider (6mm) but shorter (18mm), not really "bigger". In terms of surface area it's a bit smaller.
- athenot 4y agoIt's only 6mm wider than A4, but 18mm shorter (about 3/4 inch) A4 210mm x 297mm Letter 216mm x 279mm
- codethief 4y agoYou're absolutely right, it is shorter – for some reason my memories just skipped that part. Maybe because the width is the most relevant when writing down long equations. :)
- prennert 4y agowhen I see text on US letter, I tend to struggle reading it fast. This is because I find it hard to find the next line after I read to the end of a line. I think there is an optimal line width that allows the eyes to flow from line to line, and documents in the US letter format does seem to regular exceed that. Of course this is not intrinsically the fault of the paper size. The lines could just be narrower. But then you get a massive margin, which is often not what you want for a /letter/. At least not one printed on 10pt or 12pt. Once you put notes in the margins, or double column layout, US letter might be superior. Maybe also for typed letters as the words tend to be wider in that case. I am curious if people experience the same, or potentially the other way around.
- cylinder714 4y agoI cannot believe no one has posted Markus Kuhn's excellent page on the subject, first appearing in 1996: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html
- chadlavi 4y agoIt never occurred to me that these same sizes trickle all the way down to passports, IDs and business cards
- _HMCB_ 4y agoAs an American, I can say A4 feels just perfect to me. Not too large or small.
- solidsnack9000 4y agoI hope we will use the A* family of paper sizes in the USA more widely. Many excellent notebooks, notepads, &c are available from Germany, Japan, France and England in the A* family of sizes, and they all work with the corresponding envelopes. There is so much paper correspondence -- in the form of utility bills, government notices, packing lists, and many other things -- that could fit on A5, which is a handy size for many things; and now manufactured in great quantities all over the world.
- jbay808 4y agoWhen I lived in Japan and worked with ISO paper, it made me realize what we in North America are missing out on. I wish it were more widely available because I'd buy it.
- m-p-3 4y agoCanadian here, I wish we switched to A* paper format :|