3 ms·
could you please explain how US customary is base 2? For example, how is "12 inches to a foot, 3 foot to a yard, and 1760 yards to a mile" base 2? My understa
by achenet 4y ago
could you please explain how US customary is base 2?
For example, how is "12 inches to a foot, 3 foot to a yard, and 1760 yards to a mile" base 2?
My understanding, before reading your post was that US customary was basically adapted from imperial which was in turn just an adaptation of folk measurements - a foot was about the length of a foot, etc.
- thechao 4y agoLengths aren't as important to farmers as volumes — those are base-2. Remember: 1790, not 1990.
- achenet 4y agoa quart is a quarter of a gallon, an oz is a 32nd of a quart... eh I guess that makes sense.
- gs17 4y agoSadly, teaspoons to tablespoons has a jump of 3x, but other than that it's mostly binary with a few skips (e.g. there's not a real half gallon unit AFAIK, it's just "a half gallon", same for 2 fl oz). For some reason a barrel is 31.5 gallons instead of 32, with a hogshead being twice that at 63, but those are pretty rarely used.
- shawnz 4y agoI guess they are referring to how inches for example are commonly subdivided into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, etc.