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The Logic Behind Metric Paper Sizes
Oily Pakora writes "Those of us in the United States are so used to our Letter and Legal paper sizes. We've seen the A4 paper size option in our printer trays and in printer preference menus. Metric sizes used almost everywhere in the world, save for the US and Canada. Here is an interesting article that discusses all of the aspects of metric paper. For those who enjoy a bit of math, did you know that in the Metric paper system, the height-to-width ratio of all pages is the square root of 2? This means that you can place two sheets of A4 side-by-side and they will equal an A3 sheet exactly, and two sheets of A3 will equal an A2."
Metric paper is cool. When I ran across another original article (about a year ago) about it, I went right out and bought some. Well, actually I didn't. Staples didn't carry it, and neither did WalMart or Office Max. The local stationers and office supply stores didn't even know what it was.
So then I tried the web. Not much luck there.
Called the 1-800-staples number. Asked the customer assistant for a ream of A4 paper (I'd order a box if necessary).
"A4 paper, hmmm, is that the big 11x17 stuff?"
"No, its metric size."
"Is that some kind of drafting paper?"
"No, its about the same size as letter paper."
"Oh, why don't you just use that?"
After making up some excuse about needed to product a document for a european customer, and international standards, I was transferred over to their "special needs" department, and then escalated through three levels of help there, where I finally found someone who knows more about paper than I do.
Tada, one ream of 8.27" by 11.69" paper.
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taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Metric has those traits nearly universally, and we're seeing some aspects of the metric system more often in everyday life.
But the sheer cost in productivity of shifting to the metric system, when nearly every North American office and person has the SI system encoded on a near-genetic level, would be astronomical.
The US "failing to meet the expectations of the global economy" (see article) by using SI units of paper is a little extreme of a comment. Whatever it costs to deal with the differences, it would cost more to enforce unilateral mindset change - in money, time, and even more.
We'll just wait as the units slowly creep into more and more aspects of everyday life.
Then again... I work with engineers. I always see and hear these units.
Well, I don't want to sound rude, but 99% of the world knows that metric paper sizes (and all metric mesures for that matter) are way more clean and nice than stupid, outdatted empire and non-conventionnal mesures.
And for the anecdote about 2 sheets of A4 = 1 sheet of A3, I remember learning that in elementary school.
How is that *news* for nerds ? Metric paper sizes are here since before the oldest slashdotter was born !
Next stories : "It looks like the Persian were wrong ! Pi does not equal to (16/9) !", "New units discovered : the meter !"
That reminds me when I had to fold A0 drawings in order to fit them on A4 rings binders in a way, that you could unfold them without taken them out of the rings. Is something like this ever done with non-metric paper ?
Origin of the phrase "one for the road". In London, while on the way to the gallows, the cart would stop at each pub along the way. The criminal would be allowed a drink at every pub, almost always 'on the house' so that the soul would not come back to make due on a debt. Also, i suspect pity played a large role.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
You don't really think the size of our paper has anything to do with our level of scientific advancement. There are many reasons why the metric system is good and we should all learn to use it - standardizing our paper sizes isn't one of them. (BTW the metric system sucks for times when you really do want to use fractions)
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I think the metric system is like Open Source:
It's going to win in the long run -
simply because it's the logical way to go!
If you look at the evolution of things, there have always been different ways of doing stuff, but in the end one of them won - simply because it was undeniably the best way to go - and the others lost out..
perl -e 'printf("%x!\n",49153)'
That is true, but the 8.5 x 11 has a width-length ratio of about 1.29, whereas the 11 x 17 has a ratio of 1.54. A sheet of 17 x 22 again has the ratio of 1.29 and so on.
The DIN A formats all have the ratio of square root 2. That makes it very easy to scale stuff up or down, e.g. if you use a copy machine: copy 2 DIN A4 (= DIN A3) on one DIN A4 without messing up the margins. Cut the sheet in half and you have 2 DIN A5 pages that exactly look like the DIN A4 pages, only half the size.
I am a Canuck expat in Europe, and I grew up with 8.5x11 paper. Now, however, I shudder when I see it. A4 is so much more aesthetically pleasing to me, probably because it looks less clunky than its fatter and shorter American cousin. And, since the headline asks, I have found the scaling of the metric series to be very handy; it is easy to ask for precisely the size of paper you want.
Who says Letter and Legal aren't metric??
Letter is 215.9 x 279.4 mm
Legal is 215.9 x 355.6 mm
Does it matter that it's not a round number? No way! Only envelope and binder makers would care. Letter vs A4 is not an argument of metric vs imperial.
And btw, I use 11x17" all the time, which is *surprise* exactly twice the size of Letter.
Compare that with, say, the foot. 12 inches - easily divisible by 3, 4, and 6. Makes building that shit a lot easier :)
Same goes with volumes - it's easy to convert gallons to quarts to pints. You have to memorize more units (which I agree sucks), but it makes making that recepie easier when you realize you have more guests coming.
Actually, the whole series of metric paper sizes from A1 to A5 are made by repeatedly folding sheets in half. And the width-to-height ratio is certainly not the Golden Mean! As others have pointed out...
I used to develop software that printed things, and always had a supply of A4 paper handy so I could make sure I didn't have any paper size-related bugs lurking. If I was lucky the folks at the local office supply place would know what A4 was, but they certainly wouldn't have it (not even in Canada). So I'd wait for the next business trip to Europe and grab a package when I was there.
"Anything to declare?"
"I went to Paris and bought a package of paper."
...laura
Call me an incorrigible geek, but that little tidbit made me giddy.
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
Why don't you like transistors?
May we never see th
Honestly, US companies are genuinely converting to Metric, believe it or not. I work in a consultancy and work with a variety of clients, including a bunch in the worlds of science and medicine.
Since I design things (not code), I have to ask what units they want their things in - I remember one conversation with a wholly US based company going like this:
"What units do you want the database delivered in?"
- [SARCASM BOLD] "We are a scientific company.[/SARCASM BOLD]>
"Oh, right."
They made me feel pretty stupid for asking. I'd say across the product industry it's something like 50/50 right now.
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
I have some idea, yes. You see, I've laid tile in the past, and one of the things you do is center the pattern on the floor, with equal sized partial tiles at the edges. This requires division of the distances by 2. It's really cumbersome to divide 34 7/8 inches by two in your head, for example.
So, I went out to get a metric tape measure. Couldn't find a single one in my tiny Texas town. Eventually, I went to the Internet (Amazon.com) to find it. I wanted to get a tape measure with just centimeters on it, but had to settle for one with both inches and centimeters.
Just so I'm never stuck without a metric tape measure again, I bought two of them. Cost me $25 apiece.
Signed, an American who loves the metric system, was scientifically trained with the metric system, and if made emperor of the universe would provide free metric system education to the population at government expense.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Here's something really funny:
With cars, wheels come in several bolt patterns. In the US, 4.5" x 5 was a popular pattern. In Japan, 100mm x 5 was popular. But soon, we started seeing Japan switch to 114.3mm x 5. People started paying a premium for these "special" wheels.
That is, until everyone realized that 114.3mm is simply 4.5". Basically, the Japanese realized that there was an economy of scale to using the 4.5" bolt pattern. Obviously, they could not adopt the non-metric system of measurement so the 114.3mm x 5 pattern was borne.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Not quite. The saying actually refers to the trip from the prison to the Tyburn Tree in London. The prisoner to be hanged would be given drink to calm him down for the hanging. The closest pub to the place of hanging that lay upon the route was a mile away. The prisoner would have a drink at this last pub, and then be given a drink to have on his way to the gallows. Interestingly, this is also the origin of "on the wagon" as one of the guards travelling with the prisoner was not allowed to enter the pubs with him. So couldn't drink, and had to stay on the wagon.
Some lovely linkage:here, here and here.
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You're joking, right?
> let's make A0 one square meter instead of using some sort of established paper size!
A0 _is_ 1 square meter.
(actually it's 0.999949 m^2)
I totally agree. I won't be surprised to see USA sticking with M$ and their products when all the world will have long switched to Linux, just because it's The American Way(TM).
The metric system also makes it easy to calculate the weight of an amount of paper. Photocopy paper is typically 80 grams per square meter. A0 paper is exactly 1 square meter, hence 80 grams; keep halving this until you arrive at 5 grams for a sheet of A4 paper. Easy! Could be useful when trying to calculate postage, typically done by weight. Try doing that with weird-o imperial sizes...
This number is otherwise known as the "golden ratio", it was discovered back in classical Greece and it was known to be the most aesthetically pleasing of all ratios. The Parthenon in Athens was built so that its length and width were dictated by this ratio, it was also used by many Renaissance artists to draw the human body so it seems "perfect".
It is impossible of cause to prove mathematically that this ratio is the best looking of all irrational numbers any more than it is possible to prove mathematically who is the most attractive human, however it's endurance seems to suggest that it has some base to it. It has links with Fibonacci numbers, it also is encountered when drawing regular pentagrams and decagons.
Due to the aesthetically pleasing nature of this ratio I think it would be fairly cool to have a series of paper sizes based on this ratio for artistic uses, rather than the practical but bland "A" series or the fairly pointless American and Canadian series.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
A4 is 210 x 297 mm. US-Letter is 216 x 279 mm.
If you're formatting electronic documentation (e.g. PDFs), it's useful to use the so-called PA4 format, 210 x 279 mm, mentioned in a note in the article.
PA4 PDFs print correctly on both A4 paper (with extra tall margins) and letter paper (with extra wide margins.)
nope, it isn't the same shape.
Long side / short side = ?
17/11 = 1.54545(54...)
11/8.5 = 1.29411(..)
they haven't the same shape.
you were right to post anonimously..
i had a sig, once..
Related to this:
Assuming an envelope weighs about the same as a few sheets of similarly-sized paper, you can now guess fairly accurately how much it'll cost to post a letter printed on A4 (or A5, A3, etc.) paper without actually having to weigh it.
Well, it's simpler because you used a common divisor (1000). You could just as easily written 2/8 + 1/8 = 3/8, and have it be just as sensible.
.01 (penny) .05 (nickel) .25 (quarter)
Personally, I find quarters to be the most natural way to divide things up. I wish we all used a base-4 system. In fact, the US monetary system does close to that (mix of 4 and 5), if you look at common denominations:
base:
x5 =
x5 =
x4 = 1 dollar bill
x5 = 5 dollar bill
x4 = 20 dollar bill
x5 = 100 dollar bill
etc, etc
Metric paper is great but Points and Picas are based on the inch, how do they size fonts in metric?
-G
"Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Methinks the trick is to get schools to use metric.
To me, all this transitioning seems half-hearted, since we're still raising our kids to prefer 'standard' units. If they're taught metric in schools first, then when they get to 'standard' they should immediately see it as the baneful monstrosity it is. Once they grow up, we'd finally have a public that prefers metric, and the transition would be easy.
The US actually has two guys who work for the NIST whose job is to promote the metric system on the american public. Unfortunately, one had to do some quick mental arithmetic when he was asked how much he weighed in kilograms.
" this is also the origin of "on the wagon" as one of the guards travelling with the prisoner was not allowed to enter the pubs with him. So couldn't drink, and had to stay on the wagon."
I followed your link to "The Idler" and that site tells a different tale about the origin of "on the wagon," quoted below:
--
"Incidentally this also is the origin of 'on the wagon', after finishing his drink from the last tavern before the gallows, the prisoner would be put 'on the wagon' for the last time, destined never to drink again before his death."
Expand? No. But perhaps someone wants to copy your thesis 2-up, and that's a lot easier with metric sizes.
That's what has been done in the UK (as far as I know). Stuff is still being measured in miles per hour and feet and inches, but the majority of the younger generation is more aware and ready to use the metric system.
The Conservatives, however, keep making this an issue of "national identity" (?) and resist any attempts to try and make it more common.
Apparently it will make you French if you buy 33cl bottle of beer instead of a pint... <sigh>
As a Canadian of a certain age, I have gone through the grand metric flip. When I was but a child (most would say that hasn't chnaged), I learned the Imperial system in school (160 ounces in a gallon versus 132).
Around about the time I was 13 years old, the metric came into play. Temperature was now reported in something called Celcius and milk was purchased in litres rather than quarts or gallons. Guess what, everyone, including my grandparents soon learned that 32C was hot not freezing, 16C was comfortable, 15cm of snow was not really worth getting excited about and a 5kg bag of potatoes had a few more potatoes than a 10 pound bag.
The only thing that I still find VERY confusing is the way fuel consumption is reported. Gone is the familiar Miles/Gallon where bigger is better only to be replaced by Liters/100Km where smaller is better!
I am sure there is a conspiracy or two lurking there somewhere.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
Only some Imperial units are base-12; look at pounds and ounces or feet and yards. (And never mind that Americans think a pound is a pint for some reason.)
Oh, come on. The metric system does not prevent you from confusing a liter and a kilo, and it happens often enough. People just happen to be lucky that water got defined as 1 kg/L.
And you, are, of course, correct - I won't try to justify any portion of the Imperial system other than the basic units.
1/3 of a metre is on your ruler, you have bigger problems than the Imperial system can help you with.
I could easily say if you can't remember what certain units are, you've got bigger problems as well, and if you really can't deal with fractions, you've got bigger problems also. I pointed out an advantage - pointing out that it's a weak advantage is poor. Metric is convenient because it's consistent - Imperial is convenient because it's divisible. I never suggested that Imperial was better, only that it had an advantage.
Imperial tends to be fraction-based, and metric tends to be decimal-based. Decimal-based trades ease for precision, whereas fraction-based trades precision for ease.
Recall that industrial mass production is essentially a 20th century invention, and that by the 1940's it still had not really spread beyond the U.S. and Europe. In World War II, most European industrial capacity was destroyed at one point or another, providing a clean slate to rethink standards for every industry, and to adopt logical standards with no switchover cost.
After WWII, Europe wisely went to the metric system. Developing countries wisely adopted it as well. But the U.S., with its factories intact (and now back to making cars and vacuum cleaners) was saddled (and remains cursed with) with tremendous switching costs. The expense in lost customers and supplier confusion is too great for a company in most industries to unilaterally change. And agreements to change all at once are very hard to achieve.
Empirical evidence:
Newer US major industries (e.g. semiconductors) usually work in metric
(As noted elsewhere) US science is in metric; because switchover costs are lower scientists could switch almost right away.
Well-meaning attempts to effect a switch have been ignored by industry (because of the cost)
US industries with a big international component are often metric (bicycle manufacture)
I suppose the conclusion to draw is that the US is unlikely to switch until either something destroys its industrial factories, or the "old" unswitched industries become so dwarfed by new metric ones that it is actually cheaper for them to change.
My wife, who is Japanese, pointed out a VERY good use of chopsticks: for picking dropped objects like screws from the inside of computer cases (when your hand won't fit inside).
--
Thank God I'm an atheist!
While a pint of beer in America *IS* smaller than a pint in the UK, that's usually alright. Because the beer in the UK *also* had more alcohol and flavor.
And chatting with a coworker about managing to drink two pints at lunch (do as the romans do, and all that), he asked me how many stones I weighed. WTF. I guess that would depend on the stone. I knew I was 18 hands tall (grew up around horses), but stones? (I now know I was 12 stones).
So, it's about 25 here in the Bay Area today. Nice to not need a coat.
Well, the restaurant in France where they introduced the fork to the West (from Italy) is still running. I imagine they don't have Sporks there.
an from what i've heard the spork was invented by the canadian army... can someone confirm this very important piece?
I wonder why Westerners insist on using both a fork and spoon to eat after they've seen the Spork.
Especially when there are such informative sites dedicated to the use and appreciation of sporks.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Also, iirc a program I saw a couple of months ago, famously one prisoner refused his last drink (as some did), and so was hanged earlier than he might have been. Had he accepted the drink, his stay of execution would have arrived at Tyburn before him, and he would have lived.
Apparently, after that, very few prisoners refused the drink.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
While we are at it: have you seen these pictures of Japan? Other countries can be funny!
For all intents and purposes nobody uses the rod or furlong. Where they still survive is interesting to note though - horse racing still uses the furlong to denote race length, and canoeing portages are still measured in rods.
M/D/Y goes in the order you usually say a date in English. Hence, May 14th, 2004 -> 5/14/2004.
Maybe that's an american thing too, here in New Zealand I would say 'The 5th of May 2004', never 'May the 5th 2004', and I think most other people would too.
D/M/Y and Y-M-D make sense, the values ascend or descend in scale, but M/D/Y is just all wrong.
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I must add to this frenzy of cutlery tangents! The rounded-end knife replaced the pointy dagger-like knife at the table in the 17th century as well. Cardinal Richelieu was so disgusted by courtier's habit of picking their teeth with the pointy knives after dinner that he ordered a set of knives made with rounded ends.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I agree in general that Celsius is a simpler system, and makes more sense than Fahrenheit. Besides, who wants to remember what 0 Celsius is in Rankin or Kelvin -- they're even worse than Fahrenheit.
I have noticed that people will use whatever measure they're used to, and don't like to switch between them. For instance, I have friends who will happily talk about the weather in terms of degrees Fahrenheit, but when asked how hot their CPUs run, automatically switch to Celsius.
The one interesting characteristic of Fahrenheit is that one degree is about the smallest temperature change sensible by the human body, so Fahrenheit makes sense from a day-to-day standpoint. This would change, however, if thermostats, etc. allowed you to see or set a half degree Celsius, which is slightly smaller than a degree Fahrenheit, achieving the same effect.
We paid the price of conversion in favor of more efficient international co-operation. Today, we are still paying the price for you not being able to do your part. Many people operating with you need to know about these completely unnecessary imperial units. Every now and then an airplane drops from the sky because they thought they filled in gallons, a patient is killed due to an inch/cm translation error, or a mars probe goes wild.
US will need to pay the price for getting more compatible with the rest of the world. The cost of not being compatible is huge to the American industry, and getting metric is fundamental to the American economy.
We did our part. Now it is time for you to do yours. It is really rude to pull of a "it is so expensive" trick when everyone else has already paid their part.
-- Imperial units must die --