4 ms·

I suspect the inter-stamp variability might be a little bigger than that.

• VLM 12y ago
  That's how you can tell someone was trolling the library, decades later. Because the stamps came in boxes, so a box of 10K consisting of 1K sheets was 8 inches thick so 8/1000th of an inch (all made up numbers). My wife is the daughter of a postmaster and by osmosis she knows these things, life in a rural post office isn't always as exciting as a Bukowski novel so this kind of thing has been discussed. There were spools of stamps at various times so that might be a puzzling math problem. On the table in front of me is 1000 sheets of laserprinter paper in two packages about 4 inches thick so 4/1000ths of an inch for letter size 20 pound paper.
  • anigbrowl 12y ago
    Ha, I came to the same conclusion about it being a prank before spotting your comment.
• kazinator 12y ago
  You would think so, but it's surprising how consistent paper is! For instance, I've measured various papers with a caliper (pages of a book, samples of laser printer paper, ...) and it's amazing how consistent it is.
  • irremediable 12y ago
    Fair enough! I stand (partially?) corrected.
• cmiller1 12y ago
  So measure a stack of 20 and divide for an average. You could even measure them individually then to estimate the variability.