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| General Cooking (rec.food.cooking) For general food and cooking discussion. Foods of all kinds, food procurement, cooking methods and techniques, eating, etc. |
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"Bob (this one)" > wrote in message ... > > In article .com>, > > wrote: > > > >>Hiya, would like to try some of these recipes, but I'm british and use > >>ounces in cooking. Does anyone know the conversion? Thanx > > A good one <http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/volume> > > > There are 8 oz. to a cup. > > Yes, but British fluid ounces are a different size. 16 British ounces > = 15 1/3 US ounces. > > > 1 oz. is roughly 30 mls. > > US ounce = 29 1/2 mls - close, but when scaling up, it distorts rather > quickly. > > A US gallon is only .8 of an Imperial gallon. > > But it all comes to nothing here because most everybody but the US > cooks by weight. Brits typically use their kitchen scales to cook with > - much more accurate than volume measure. The US home kitchen also cooks by weight - they just use an indirect measure that has less steps than direct weighing. e.g., if I want to add 4 oz of butter, 2 oz nuts, 8 ozs milk, 1/5 oz salt, 7 ozs flour, and 4 oz raisens to a recipe, I measure out the volume measure of the 4 oz of butter, the volume measure of 2 oz of nuts, the volume measure of 8 ozs milk, etc. rather than weigh each ingredient on a scale and check the number scale to get the right scale reading. The weight added for each ingredient is correct, but I do not have to keep going back to the scale at each addition, I can just use the volume measure which is directly related ot the weight measure. i.e., 1 cup butter always weighs 1/2 lb, so when it calls for a cup of butter and I put in a cup, I always put in 1/2 lb of butter. Indirect measure. > > Those ounces... > > Any conversions from volume to weight in the kitchen can only be > approximate. > > Pastorio > |
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In > Hahabogus wrote:
> A british imperial pint is 20 british ounces...hence a british > imperial cup is 10 british ounces. After conversion to metric, the > british cup was relegated to 300 ml. > > A canadian cup was relegated to 250 ml. > > An american Cup is 247 (I believe) ml. > > So if you're british for convienence, use a metric measuring cup and > if the recipe is american use a 250 ml cup. (I included the 3 mls, > for ease of measuring). > > It's been well over 20 years since britan 'went' metric, so it is time > you 'embraced' the future and got new kitchen measuring equipment. Embraced PET's version of a better Canada more like. Yeah, we in Sask are part of that mess too as MB is also, but I still think in imperial and always will. A cup is a cup is a cup and ml's don't add up to nuthin' ;-) -- Cheers Dennis Remove 'Elle-Kabong' to reply |
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Bob (this one) wrote:
> The cliché that says a volume ounce of water weighs an ounce > avoirdupois is wrong. Close but no cigar. > My wife likes to say, "A pint's a pound, the world around." Then I ask her what the price of beer in London has to do with anything. Well, I asked her that once. Best regards, ;-) Bob |
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One time on Usenet, zxcvbob > said:
> Bob (this one) wrote: > > The cliché that says a volume ounce of water weighs an ounce > > avoirdupois is wrong. Close but no cigar. > My wife likes to say, "A pint's a pound, the world around." Then I ask > her what the price of beer in London has to do with anything. Well, I > asked her that once. DH is a complete smart ass, and he likes that "pint's a pound" phrase as well. I can't wait until the next time he says it, I'll happily spring your response on him -- revenge is sweet... ;-) -- J.J. in WA ~ mom, vid gamer, novice cook ~ "You still haven't explained why the pool is filled with elf blood." - Frylock, ATHF |
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BOB wrote:
> wrote: > >>Hiya, would like to try some of these recipes, but I'm >>british and use ounces in cooking. Does anyone know the >>conversion? Thanx > > > 1/8th cup per ounce. > > BOB > > Not necessarily. I believe the OP was talking about dry measure/weight. 8oz = 1 cup is liquid measure/volume. gloria p |
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"--" > wrote in message ... > it did, once. But the ole orbit is slowing down, and its longer in the year > now. Not in historical times, it hasn't - at least, not by enough to make a full day's difference in the length of a year. It's simply that the year has NEVER been exactly 52 weeks long. For that matter, the sidereal year - how long it takes the Earth to complete exactly one orbit around the Sun, with respect to the fixed stars, isn't 365 days long, either, or even 365 and 1/4 as commonly stated; it is very slightly longer, at 365.256363 days. A solar year, on the other hand - the time required for the Earth to complete one revolution, based on the vernal equinoxes - is slightly less, at 365.2425 days. (This is the year assumed by the Gregorian calendar, by the way, and that calendar is very close to being exactly on.) So not only is the year not the length you think it is, there's more than one year to worry about! Bob M. |
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"Gal Called J.J." > wrote in message ... > One time on Usenet, zxcvbob > said: > > Bob (this one) wrote: > > > > The cliché that says a volume ounce of water weighs an ounce > > > avoirdupois is wrong. Close but no cigar. > > > My wife likes to say, "A pint's a pound, the world around." Then I ask > > her what the price of beer in London has to do with anything. Well, I > > asked her that once. > > DH is a complete smart ass, and he likes that "pint's a pound" > phrase as well. I can't wait until the next time he says it, I'll > happily spring your response on him -- revenge is sweet... ;-) wouldn't do that unless you want to lose - a 16 ounce US pint of water is very close to 16 ounces of water - 1.05 pound, roughly. > > -- > J.J. in WA ~ mom, vid gamer, novice cook ~ > "You still haven't explained why the pool is > filled with elf blood." - Frylock, ATHF |
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One time on Usenet, "--" > said:
> "Gal Called J.J." > wrote in message > ... > > One time on Usenet, zxcvbob > said: > > > Bob (this one) wrote: > > > > > > The cliché that says a volume ounce of water weighs an ounce > > > > avoirdupois is wrong. Close but no cigar. > > > > > My wife likes to say, "A pint's a pound, the world around." Then I ask > > > her what the price of beer in London has to do with anything. Well, I > > > asked her that once. > > > > DH is a complete smart ass, and he likes that "pint's a pound" > > phrase as well. I can't wait until the next time he says it, I'll > > happily spring your response on him -- revenge is sweet... ;-) > > wouldn't do that unless you want to lose - a 16 ounce US pint of water is > very close to 16 ounces of water - 1.05 pound, roughly. What? I'm not saying that a pint isn't a pound, just that I get tired of hearing it. I like Zxcvbob's reply 'cuz it's a smartass joke... -- J.J. in WA ~ mom, vid gamer, novice cook ~ "You still haven't explained why the pool is filled with elf blood." - Frylock, ATHF |
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-- wrote:
> > wrote in message > ... > >> In rec.food.cooking, "Bob (this one)" > wrote: >> >>> Dry ounces are still volume measure, like fluid ounces. >> >> Does anyone know how it happened that "ounces" refers to either >> weight or volume, depending on usage? Is there some nexis >> between the two? All I can imagine is that one fluid ounce of >> water at STP weighs one ounce. Is that it? > > as i understand - > > the old labs of the amateur scientists 400-500 years or so back > needed a way to calibrate their instruments (tolerance was somewhat > slack back then than now). Later, after merchants picked up those > measures, they also needed an easy way to be checked. > > Water was commonly available, so weight and temperature scales were > established and agreed upon using water-related parameters. If you > had the container of the correct dimensions, call it one "pint", > and you filled it with water, you had a lb weight. Calibration can > be done. > > So the volume of a pint measure hanging on the wall of the lab > defined the weight of one pound, and the volume of a pint. > > Volume meets weight. Um, no. Weight measures were standardized back then (and before) all over the world, volumes weren't. Merchants came way before scientists. If you read old recipes - I mean OLD - you'll find that volume measures were given as "half an eggshell" and "a wineglass of..." and "the size of a pigeon's egg." Whereas weights were given in specific units. Commerce demanded transferable units hence the tiny "carat" which was the weight of an exceedingly small seed. Here's a document from the 13th century that deals with weights... <http://www.sizes.com/library/Britain/ponderibus.htm> " the wine gallon is the space occupied by a quantity of wheat weighing 8 pounds. This interpretation is made explicit in some of the other manuscript versions. However, what we now call the wine gallon, used time out of mind by the English excise before being legalized in 1707, and the basis of the U. S. gallon, contains 231 cubic inches. That volume is as close to the volume of 8 liber mercatoriae of wine as to the volume of 8 Troy pounds of wheat." Weights were well-established, volumes were not. "A Chef of Fustian consisteth of Fourteen Ells. [A Chef of Sindon containeth Ten Ells.]" Ells are yards. Fustian is a fabric and they're still measured by the yard in the US today. By the meter elsewhere. Old, old habits die hard. > The old easily-remembered-by-ordinary-uneducated-humans 3 by 4 > system in use at the time was not good enough for them, so someone > wanted to change it to a more logical 8 based system. > > Divide the measure into 2x8 parts and call it an ounce, and if you > are not too careful defining which measure it was, and either by > design so we could remember it or by accident, we get 16 ounces > and 16 ounces, weight and volume. This is unfortunately all fictional. Ounces came from Latin, so did librum for pound. That's why they're abbreviated "lb." The language of the pharmacy is Latin. Look here for measures still in use millennia later. And note that volume measures were merely the volumes of known weights. <http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manufacturers.com/pharmaceutical-glossary/pharmaceutical-abbreviations.html#Weights-measures> "...The avoirdupois ounce, the unit commonly used in the United States, is 1/16 pound or about 28.3495 grams.... The word ounce is from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was divided into 12 ounces. The word "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the same root. The symbol "oz" is from the old Italian word onza (now spelled oncia) for an ounce." and... "fluid ounce: "A traditional unit of liquid volume, called the fluid ounce to avoid confusion with the weight ounce. In the U. S. customary system there are 16 fluid ounces in a pint, so each fluid ounce represents 1.804,687 cubic inches or 29.573,531 milliliters. In the British imperial system there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, so each fluid ounce represents about 1.733,871 cubic inches or 28.413,063 milliliters. A fluid ounce of water weighs just a bit more than one ounce avoirdupois." <http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000717.html> Base 8 is a rare system with 10 being the most common, then 7, 12, 24, 60, and 365 for measuring time. Nothing is commonly base 8. These units are a triumph of human resistance to change, not some superior calculational creation. The cup being 8 ounces is a coincidence of convenience. > ------------------- Similar for the metric system, except someone > in France decided that one millionth of the distance from the > equator to the pole was better than using the weight of water in a > measured container that those evil English were using. > > They then set the nexis at 1ml liquid = 1gram mass = 1 cubic > centimeter volume when using water, so instruments could also be > calibrated easily in the metric system. The laws of physics set those relationships, not some committee. But it is why the basic unit was so designated. It's no longer that distance measure, but something hopelessly out of the hands of amateurs. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. > ------------ humans remember 3s and 4s groups more readily than any > other values Hence phone numbers. But how about postal codes...? > sets of 8 is the most natural when using octal or counting when > your thumbs are used as the next digit (why octal for the > uneducated? count to eight twice using your fingers as the ones and > use the thumbs as the next-place-holder eights, and you get two > thumbs worth, i.e., 16 - you can count to sixteen on your hands > without remembering in octal, while the evil enemy the french with > their new-fangled metrics can only count to ten before they have to > scratch a mark in the dirt to go higher) Primitive people don't use anything like that. They work off base 10 for the most part as the numbers of commerce and trade and make multiples of 10 by secondary gestures. Count all the fingers - that's 10, then count them again and tap the wrist - that's 20. Then count them again and tap halfway up the forearm - that's 30, and so forth. I've seen that in widely separated cultures. > the original metric had (and some still do have) 100 degrees in a > circle, 100 degrees between water boiling and freezing, I've never seen anything even remotely like this. Thermometers were always linear because they measured expansion in two dimensions. > 100 parts > to a time and geometry minute, Military minute. Time-study minute. But not common currency. > 10 increments in everything. works > ok in theory, and quite well in many applications, but in geometry, > in time, in most water-based applications such as steam > calculations which were devised to be simple by using "specific" > parameters, forces (several measures), pressures (there are > probably six or seven metric measures that can drive the engineer > nuts), and rapid mental calculation of small digital amounts, the > British 3-4 and octal length-force-second system and the 60 > multiple time, temperature, and geometry units beats the original > metric length-meter-mass hands down. Sorry. No. If that were the case, all those engineers I worked with at Westinghouse would still be using those units. The simple fact of the matter is that functioning in 10s and multiples and divisibles of tens is simpler for any sort of computation you want to consider. These numbering systems are holdovers from earlier times and remain conventions mostly because we're familiar with them. Getting people to change is an interesting exercise. My grandparents were born in Italy in the late 1800's. The spoke of both "kili" and "libri" when talking about weight measures. "Gallone" was the standard liquid measure, except they also said that "quatro litri fa un gallone." "Four liters make a gallon." > All those odd measure - chains, barrels, tons, are standards for > specific purpose that were used by both countries in international > commerce are blamed on the british system. Every culture has had unique measures that suited the needs they filled. No one blamed measures on anyone else, they merely used their own. And still do except for commerce that crosses borders, and even then many still do. You can still buy koku of rice in Japan. > As I understand, one of > the french kings had all of France surveyed in great part to scrap > the old and get the new measure in place That would be Napoleon. And he had all the houses in France uniquely numbered. That's where the cosmetic company called "The house of 4711" got its name. > or so the story goes Um, sure. Soon to be a major motion picture. Pastorio |
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ok - some clarification and background
"Bob (this one)" > wrote in message ... > -- wrote: > > > > wrote in message > > ... > > > >> In rec.food.cooking, "Bob (this one)" > wrote: > >> > >>> Dry ounces are still volume measure, like fluid ounces. > >> > >> Does anyone know how it happened that "ounces" refers to either > >> weight or volume, depending on usage? Is there some nexis > >> between the two? All I can imagine is that one fluid ounce of > >> water at STP weighs one ounce. Is that it? > > > > as i understand - > > > > the old labs of the amateur scientists 400-500 years or so back > > needed a way to calibrate their instruments (tolerance was somewhat > > slack back then than now). Later, after merchants picked up those > > measures, they also needed an easy way to be checked. > > > > Water was commonly available, so weight and temperature scales were > > established and agreed upon using water-related parameters. If you > > had the container of the correct dimensions, call it one "pint", > > and you filled it with water, you had a lb weight. Calibration can > > be done. > > > > So the volume of a pint measure hanging on the wall of the lab > > defined the weight of one pound, and the volume of a pint. > > > > Volume meets weight. > > Um, no. Weight measures were standardized back then (and before) all > over the world, volumes weren't. Merchants came way before scientists. > First, who standardized them? There was no ISO or like organization. A standard is a device to assure common measure. After the King left that business, the Royal Academy, formed of amateur scientists (were there any others back then), standardized measures. Since there were no lab service companies, they adopted the water standard. And all measures from time before that, no matter where the WORD came from be it sanskrit or latin, were changed to meet the standard. The 15 ounces of a pound used from the 12 century was changed to 16 ounces, http://www.lajzar.co.uk/unit/system/imp_brit.html In our labs, we had to replicate all the old means of achieving a standard for measures. > If you read old recipes - I mean OLD - you'll find that volume > measures were given as "half an eggshell" and "a wineglass of..." and > "the size of a pigeon's egg." I do have two very old cookbooks- and they do measure as you said, However, first, an 18th century kitchen is not a lab, and second, they are measuring weights by using volume, as acceptable a method as measuring a force by using a mass. Whereas weights were given in specific > units. Commerce demanded transferable units hence the tiny "carat" > which was the weight of an exceedingly small seed. Here's a document > from the 13th century that deals with weights... > <http://www.sizes.com/library/Britain/ponderibus.htm> > which has little to do with standardizing measures for the required interchageability and science of an era that came 300 years later. > " the wine gallon is the space occupied by a quantity of wheat > weighing 8 pounds. This interpretation is made explicit in some of the > other manuscript versions. However, what we now call the wine gallon, > used time out of mind by the English excise before being legalized in > 1707, and the basis of the U. S. gallon, contains 231 cubic inches. > That volume is as close to the volume of 8 liber mercatoriae of wine > as to the volume of 8 Troy pounds of wheat." Weights were > well-established, volumes were not. Weight NAMES were well established, but not the standard of that measure. further, there were 31.5 wine gallons in a barrel; 36 beer gallons in a barrel, 40 spirit gallons in a barrel, 42 gallons of petroleum in a barrel > > "A Chef of Fustian consisteth of Fourteen Ells. [A Chef of Sindon > containeth Ten Ells.]" Ells are yards. Sorry, you are wrong again - Ells vary from 27 inches (Flemish) to 45 inches (French) Fustian is a fabric and they're > still measured by the yard in the US today. We measure all cloth in shops by the yard By the meter elsewhere. > Old, old habits die hard. > > > The old easily-remembered-by-ordinary-uneducated-humans 3 by 4 > > system in use at the time was not good enough for them, so someone > > wanted to change it to a more logical 8 based system. > > > > Divide the measure into 2x8 parts and call it an ounce, and if you > > are not too careful defining which measure it was, and either by > > design so we could remember it or by accident, we get 16 ounces > > and 16 ounces, weight and volume. > > This is unfortunately all fictional. Sorry, you are once again wrong. First, anyone with leadership traning for high stress environments knows the basic rule of three items for low level skills in humans. One of the basics, an absolute fundamental. And the rule of four. Second, I could once again explain it, but how about you tell us all why there are 16 ounces in a pound and 16 ounces in a pint when before about 1500 there were 15 ounces in pound? If not made 16 from 15 by design, then was it just coincidence that they changed the ounces to 16 when they already had fluid ounces at 16 - that the body that was to standardize weights and measures used the same number 16 was just coincidence? >Ounces came from Latin, so did > librum for pound. That's why they're abbreviated "lb." The WORD came from latin. In the early centuries in England before standardization, there were 15 ounces in a pound. Did the romans have 15 ounces or 13 or how many in apound? > > The language of the pharmacy is Latin. Look here for measures still in > use millennia later. And note that volume measures were merely the > volumes of known weights. > <http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manuf...al-glossary/ph armaceutical-abbreviations.html#Weights-measures> > I did look, and I found no such information. The link you put up has absolutley nothing about measures coming from latin or Rome. And their are only weights, not volumes. And your link only has the abbreviations for frequency of dose in latin - which by way was the language of the church and was in use as a dead language in many sciences. Read your links more carefully next time. > "...The avoirdupois ounce, the unit commonly used in the United > States, is 1/16 pound or about 28.3495 grams.... The word ounce is > from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was > divided into 12 ounces. The word "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the > same root. The symbol "oz" is from the old Italian word onza (now > spelled oncia) for an ounce." > the derivation of the word "meter" may well be greek, but it didn't mean the greeks defined the ISO meter > and... > > "fluid ounce: > > "A traditional unit of liquid volume, called the fluid ounce to avoid > confusion with the weight ounce. In the U. S. customary system there > are 16 fluid ounces in a pint, so each fluid ounce represents > 1.804,687 cubic inches or 29.573,531 milliliters. In the British > imperial system there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, so each > fluid ounce represents about 1.733,871 cubic inches or 28.413,063 > milliliters. A fluid ounce of water weighs just a bit more than one > ounce avoirdupois." > <http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000717.html> > > Base 8 is a rare system with 10 being the most common, then 7, 12, 24, > 60, and 365 for measuring time. Apparently you are not technically trained. base 10 is less common than binary or octal. The binary method, the basis of all computers, was used by Russian peasants for hundreds of years. It is the math of dna. Octal is the basis for nearly all programming, The other numbers you claim are bases are almost unheard of as bases. The numbers you cite are used in the context of base 10 - a base 10 "12" is 12 units. A base 7 "12" is 8 units. Nothing is commonly base 8. These > units are a triumph of human resistance to change, not some superior > calculational creation. > > The cup being 8 ounces is a coincidence of convenience. > So it is your learned position that all the measures noted are happenstance and mere convenience. -That they are all of the same 8 and its multiples are coincidence, -that the universal standard for lab calibration being the nexis is just coincidence -that the steam/water measurement units that simplify calculation to an eighth of that required by metrics are just coincidence - that when the Academy coordinated all these measurements to a standard, it was done willy- nilly and without coordination - so it is all just happenstance > > ------------------- Similar for the metric system, except someone > > in France decided that one millionth of the distance from the > > equator to the pole was better than using the weight of water in a > > measured container that those evil English were using. > > > > They then set the nexis at 1ml liquid = 1gram mass = 1 cubic > > centimeter volume when using water, so instruments could also be > > calibrated easily in the metric system. > > The laws of physics set those relationships, not some committee. No, you are once again wrong. Laws of physics are phenomena that merely exist, they do not establish nexi. On the other hand, humans wanting to be able to establish an easy standard to calibrate instruments when unable to send the device out to a calibration lab then must calibrate by using a common medium, and they NEED a common point. If you had basic technical physics, if you had ever done any of the calibration labs which perform these tasks as part of the basic physics courses, then you would know that you would pass the course after you understood that the three basic western measurement standards were all designed. western science is not based on happy coincidence. And if you were on any of the committees that establish standards (I have been on a US national standards committee for over 30 years), you would know we integrate the standards all the time, but we don't publish explanations of what parts we do or do not integrate. But > it is why the basic unit was so designated. It's no longer that > distance measure, but something hopelessly out of the hands of > amateurs. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light > in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. > determined by measuring the original platinum iridium bar > > ------------ humans remember 3s and 4s groups more readily than any > > other values > > Hence phone numbers. But how about postal codes...? check the names for the acronym for zip code and ask yourself if the creators considered human parameters. The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers. > > > sets of 8 is the most natural when using octal or counting when > > your thumbs are used as the next digit (why octal for the > > uneducated? count to eight twice using your fingers as the ones and > > use the thumbs as the next-place-holder eights, and you get two > > thumbs worth, i.e., 16 - you can count to sixteen on your hands > > without remembering in octal, while the evil enemy the french with > > their new-fangled metrics can only count to ten before they have to > > scratch a mark in the dirt to go higher) > > Primitive people don't use anything like that. They work off base 10 > for the most part as the numbers of commerce and trade and make > multiples of 10 by secondary gestures. Count all the fingers - that's > 10, then count them again and tap the wrist - that's 20. Then count > them again and tap halfway up the forearm - that's 30, and so forth. > I've seen that in widely separated cultures. > seen it in any cultures not already influenced by western culture? You cannot have. And if you will note, I said that the change was to 8 by human design, done by those who felt they had the answer to ills by moving from the old 3-4 to a new 8 system. I know well firsthand of the politics of the move to change to metrics, and it was not for improved efficiency for the US. > > the original metric had (and some still do have) 100 degrees in a > > circle, 100 degrees between water boiling and freezing, > > I've never seen anything even remotely like this. And thus it must not exist, and so all information about it or its derivation is false? FYI, The "degrees" of 100 "degrees" in a circle are called gradians. All HP engineeering calculators that I have seen have it. FYI, Celsius and centigrade (and Kelvin) thermometers are calibrated by making 100 gradations between boiling water and an ice water solution (they are .01 degree apart. > always linear because they measured expansion in two dimensions. > > > 100 parts > > to a time and geometry minute, > > Military minute. Time-study minute. But not common currency. > The use of 100 resisted because the ten was not a natural number and did not work. > > 10 increments in everything. works > > ok in theory, and quite well in many applications, but in geometry, > > in time, in most water-based applications such as steam > > calculations which were devised to be simple by using "specific" > > parameters, forces (several measures), pressures (there are > > probably six or seven metric measures that can drive the engineer > > nuts), and rapid mental calculation of small digital amounts, the > > British 3-4 and octal length-force-second system and the 60 > > multiple time, temperature, and geometry units beats the original > > metric length-meter-mass hands down. > > Sorry. No. If that were the case, all those engineers I worked with at > Westinghouse would still be using those units. The simple fact of the > matter is that functioning in 10s and multiples and divisibles of tens > is simpler for any sort of computation you want to consider. computer - (all binary) and never even close to simpler for steam power calculations. the europeans to this day can't even use the right measure for weight - they use the unit for mass as weight. > These numbering systems are holdovers from earlier times and remain > conventions mostly because we're familiar with them. If ten is so simple, why were those unnatural systems like the sexagesimal of the baylonianian empire, the binary of the Russians, the septal of Univac, and 3-4 of Europe, the egyptian system, and all the other non-decimal systems, developed? Because they liked unnatural? One cultures natural is another cultures awkward. Getting people to > change is an interesting exercise. My grandparents were born in Italy > in the late 1800's. The spoke of both "kili" and "libri" when talking > about weight measures. "Gallone" was the standard liquid measure, > except they also said that "quatro litri fa un gallone." "Four liters > make a gallon." again a four from a native measure system > > > All those odd measure - chains, barrels, tons, are standards for > > specific purpose that were used by both countries in international > > commerce are blamed on the british system. > > Every culture has had unique measures that suited the needs they > filled. No one blamed measures on anyone else, they merely used their > own. And still do except for commerce that crosses borders, and even > then many still do. You can still buy koku of rice in Japan. > > > As I understand, one of > > the french kings had all of France surveyed in great part to scrap > > the old and get the new measure in place > > That would be Napoleon. And he had all the houses in France uniquely > numbered. That's where the cosmetic company called "The house of 4711" > got its name. > no, it was well before napoleon. An early Louis. > > or so the story goes > > Um, sure. Soon to be a major motion picture. actually, it was in a documentary on maps. > > Pastorio bottom line - all that you get to see is not all that occurs. > |
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Puester wrote:
> BOB wrote: >> 1/8th cup per ounce. >> >> BOB >> > > Not necessarily. I believe the OP was talking about > dry measure/weight. 8oz = 1 cup is liquid measure/volume. > > gloria p ;-) After reading many of the answers, I just decided that the question in the subject (only) hadn't been touched yet. I couldn't help myself. lol BOB |
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-- wrote:
I read all the way through the stuff you wrote here and there's a big missing piece that you don't seem to grasp. Those standards of measure were initially arrived at on the street, not in labs or kingly courts and they weren't necessarily universal, just useful to the time an place. Balance beams of whatever sophistication were common more than five millennia ago. Standards had to be created to deal with two major issues - trade and did I grow enough food for us to survive the winter. Value for value had to be established and the traders and commercial forces behind them created all the weights. It has been like a tower of babel throughout human history in the matter of standards and, to a lesser extent, still is. When the measure was to stay within a single culture, it could be as quirky as they wanted it to be. When it became a matter of usage between cultures, equivalence had to be established. And it was. And there were thousands of standards. I'm going to try to give you a benefit of doubt here and offer the notion that we may be using the word "standards" to mean different things. You obviously don't know the history of how we got here with our measures, and you seem to think that standards are those things preserved in Washington, dismissing what happens at the farmers' markets. And apart from England. The world is a wider place than that. And goes back a lot further than medieval England. And goes to many places and cultures omitted from your considerations. > ok - some clarification and background > > "Bob (this one)" > wrote in message > ... > >>-- wrote: >> > wrote in message ... >>> >>>>In rec.food.cooking, "Bob (this one)" > wrote: >>>> >>>>>Dry ounces are still volume measure, like fluid ounces. >>>> >>>>Does anyone know how it happened that "ounces" refers to either >>>>weight or volume, depending on usage? Is there some nexis >>>>between the two? All I can imagine is that one fluid ounce of >>>>water at STP weighs one ounce. Is that it? >>> >>>as i understand - >>> >>>the old labs of the amateur scientists 400-500 years or so back >>>needed a way to calibrate their instruments (tolerance was somewhat >>> slack back then than now). Later, after merchants picked up those >>> measures, they also needed an easy way to be checked. >>> >>>Water was commonly available, so weight and temperature scales were >>> established and agreed upon using water-related parameters. If you >>> had the container of the correct dimensions, call it one "pint", >>>and you filled it with water, you had a lb weight. Calibration can >>>be done. >>> >>>So the volume of a pint measure hanging on the wall of the lab >>>defined the weight of one pound, and the volume of a pint. >>> >>>Volume meets weight. >> >>Um, no. Weight measures were standardized back then (and before) all >>over the world, volumes weren't. Merchants came way before scientists. >> > First, who standardized them? There was no ISO or like organization. A > standard is a device to assure common measure. Exactly so. The merchants and traders standardized the units between and amongst themselves. They had to in order to get and give equal value. You mistake what was happening then with the world we live in now. There was no governing body to establish and certify all the measure units. (And if you look around, you'll find that even now that we have them, people still use measures of common currency where they live. So Brits still talk about their weight in "stones." And if you wander around in rural China, the only metric measures you'll see are in factories.) What had to happen was a form of commercial lingua franca that permitted translations from standard to standard. So Arab traders used their standards and Europeans theirs. But when they met, there was a sort of meta-standard that let them translate from one to the other. You must understand that all measuring systems and all units are agreed-upon constructs. Synthetic methods to establish parity. There's no such thing as a "natural" measure, only a convenient to the times and settings one. Using a seed from the carob plant as the basis for gem valuation wasn't decreed by royal authority, some street-trader noticed that the seeds were small and, to the technology of the time, equal in weight. So by mutual agreement, it became the standard. Later, it became "official" when some body with political power designated so it. Using a different seed to establish the weight of the "grain" as the base unit for a measurement system is likewise a mutually-agreed-upon construct. > After the King left that business, the Royal Academy, formed of amateur > scientists (were there any others back then), standardized measures. Sorry, no. Kings didn't get into it in creating the units way back when. They were created and implemented on the street. Those bodies either formalized what was already going on or created new ones, or at least attempted to simplify what was already in common usage. As when Elizabeth I decreed that a mile was exactly 8 furlongs, enlarging the mile from the Roman 5,000 feet to 5280 feet. It was an attempt to "unify" two disparate systems. In reality, it eliminated the earlier one. > Since there were no lab service companies, they adopted the water > standard. And all measures from time before that, no matter where the WORD > came from be it sanskrit or latin, were changed to meet the standard. That's been a constant process. Measures and their units have *always* been in a state of flux. That water standard business isn't true, though. In actual fact, an American pint doesn't weigh a pound. NOr does an Imperial pint. > The 15 ounces of a pound used from the 12 century was changed to 16 > ounces, > > http://www.lajzar.co.uk/unit/system/imp_brit.html Do go find some history about the evolutions of what pounds were and have become. This web site is about time of the British empire - 1844. Hardly a long view of history, and confined to one country. And even so, looking at the standardization of volume measure, it's based on the weight of water. "The British Imperial gallon was defined in 1824 to be the volume of water which weighs 10 pounds at 62 deg F with a pressure of 30 inHg. In 1963 it was defined to be the space occupied by 10 pounds of distilled water of density 0.998859 g/ml weighed in air of density 0.001217 g/ml against weights of density 8.136 g/ml. The gallon is now officially defined relative to SI units; the above value is exact." It's based on weight. > In our labs, we had to replicate all the old means of achieving a > standard for measures. We didn't do that at all. In modern times we changed a lot of them to make them more consistently exact, but we didn't go weigh out 8 pounds of barley or wheat to make a gallon, we gave it a volumetric measure apart from any weight measures because we now have the technology to make exact-volume vessels. Look at how the gallon was finally defined. Nothing to do with "all the old means." And also note that the unit "10" is the basic consideration. >>If you read old recipes - I mean OLD - you'll find that volume >>measures were given as "half an eggshell" and "a wineglass of..." and >>"the size of a pigeon's egg." > > I do have two very old cookbooks- and they do measure as you said, However, > first, an 18th century kitchen is not a lab, and second, they are measuring > weights by using volume, as acceptable a method as measuring a force by > using a mass. I'm talking 5th century, not 18th. They measured weights by weight and volume by widely varying variability. As for culinary measure, what's actually being measured is ratios. How much flour to how much water to how much salt to how much butter, etc. That's how professional recipes are written, because finally that's what it's about. Commercial recipes are stated in percents based off one ingredient. The units for home use are arrived at by custom, not decree of a government agency. So in the US, the vast preponderance of people cook by volume for reasons I've already explained. Elsewhere, they use weight for their particular reasons. But it's silly to say they're measuring weights by volume. The converse is equally true and equally false, that Germans, for example, are measuring volume by weight when they use their kitchen scales. >>Whereas weights were given in specific >>units. Commerce demanded transferable units hence the tiny "carat" >>which was the weight of an exceedingly small seed. Here's a document >>from the 13th century that deals with weights... >><http://www.sizes.com/library/Britain/ponderibus.htm> >> > which has little to do with standardizing measures for the required > interchageability and science of an era that came 300 years later. It has *everything* to do with it. That's where the bases come from - custom. But is that what you're talking about here; narrowing it down to this one point? That modern standardization is happening because earlier people were somehow stupid and we've now reached the pinnacle of measurement wisdom? I thought we were talking about what the actual measures were and are. I don't think we're talking about the same things. It seems that you're talking about global standards and I'm talking about ones used by the people who need them. And who create them to suit the conditions and situations where they are. And the sources of modern measure. So the carat still is the unit that jewelers use, defined to modern technological capacity. In any event, do you think that modern standards just sprang from Topsy's head with no historical roots? Why retain the names from thousands of years before if they weren't evolutions of old, old, old standards? >>" the wine gallon is the space occupied by a quantity of wheat >>weighing 8 pounds. This interpretation is made explicit in some of the >>other manuscript versions. However, what we now call the wine gallon, >>used time out of mind by the English excise before being legalized in >>1707, and the basis of the U. S. gallon, contains 231 cubic inches. >>That volume is as close to the volume of 8 liber mercatoriae of wine >>as to the volume of 8 Troy pounds of wheat." Weights were >>well-established, volumes were not. > > > Weight NAMES were well established, but not the standard of that measure. Did you not see the rather exact definitions there? They couldn't define them any better than their technology permitted. So it's silly to fault people in the 15th century for not being able to measure out to four decimal places. Standards in common usage needed to be only as precise as the demands placed on them. So the precision needed was what was created. And no more than that. Now we want everything to be more detailed and systematic because our society requires it. Machine tools need enormous precision to create the mechanical and electronic goods we need now. In an agrarian society, that precision wasn't needed or useful. So different kinds of standards. > further, there were 31.5 wine gallons in a barrel; 36 beer gallons in a > barrel, 40 spirit gallons in a barrel, 42 gallons of petroleum in a barrel But they were all measured in gallons, weren't they? That's the final standard. Not all barrels need to be the same size, do they? Different sizes for different applications. How much does a barrel of petroleum hold? How about a barrel of paint? Barrel is trade-specific as a unit of measure. It's a standard for each of the users. Different from each other, but standard within the trade. >>"A Chef of Fustian consisteth of Fourteen Ells. [A Chef of Sindon >>containeth Ten Ells.]" Ells are yards. > > Sorry, you are wrong again - Ells vary from 27 inches (Flemish) to 45 inches > (French) Yes, I am technically wrong. Ells aren't yards. They emerge from the same need for standards, though. Someone makes fabric and wants to sell it. How much have they made? A standard that will be understood by purchasers needs to exist. It doesn't have to be the same worldwide, it just needs to suit the demands at hand. A local standard. But if that weaver wants to sell far away, he'd better be able to explain to those customers how much they're getting so they understand it. That's why Swahili was created. A synthetic language to use between traders who didn't speak the same languages and didn't necessarily use the same units of measure. "ell "a traditional unit of length used primarily for measuring cloth. In the English system, one ell equals 20 nails, 45 inches, or 1.25 yards; in metric terms, an English ell equals exactly 1.143 meters. The word comes from the Latin ulna, which originally meant the elbow and is now the name of the bone on the outside of the forearm. Unfortunately, the same word ulna was also used for the yard, creating frequent confusion between the two units in medieval documents. Probably the ell originated through a custom of measuring lengths of cloth using two forearms, with the hands touching or overlapping. The ell was used with a similar length in France (where it was called the aune). In Scotland, the ell was practically the same as the yard, being equal to 37 Scots inches or 37.2 English inches (94.5 centimeters). This Scottish length appears to reflect an old practice of cloth merchants in giving an extra inch with each yard, to allow for any irregular cutting at the ends of the piece. In eastern Europe, the ell was a shorter distance: see next entry. "elle "a traditional unit of distance in German speaking countries. The elle varied considerably, but it was always shorter than the English ell or French aune. A typical value in northern Germany was exactly 2 fuss (German feet), which would be close to 24 inches or 60 centimeters. In the south, the elle was usually longer, about 2.5 fuss. In Vienna, the elle was eventually standardized at 30.68 inches (77.93 centimeters). Although the German word elle is often translated "yard" in English, this is not a very good equivalent. >>Fustian is a fabric and they're >>still measured by the yard in the US today. > > We measure all cloth in shops by the yard. By the meter elsewhere. Uh, sure. That's why I said "in the US today" so there would be a distinction like I've kept throughout this. >>Old, old habits die hard. >> >>>The old easily-remembered-by-ordinary-uneducated-humans 3 by 4 >>>system in use at the time was not good enough for them, so someone >>>wanted to change it to a more logical 8 based system. >>> >>>Divide the measure into 2x8 parts and call it an ounce, and if you >>>are not too careful defining which measure it was, and either by >>>design so we could remember it or by accident, we get 16 ounces >>>and 16 ounces, weight and volume. >> >>This is unfortunately all fictional. > > Sorry, you are once again wrong. No. Not about the division of "the measure into 2x8 parts." The ounce predates the cup (whether imperial or US measure) which became a convention much, much later. > First, anyone with leadership traning for high stress environments knows > the basic rule of three items for low level skills in humans. One of the > basics, an absolute fundamental. And the rule of four. <LOL> I didn't dispute the business about groups of 3 or 4, just what you're claiming about 16 ounces being some universal. Recall that I agreed by citing that phone numbers are broken into groups of 3 and 4. > Second, I could once again explain it, But you haven't explained it, merely asserted it. > but how about you tell us all why > there are 16 ounces in a pound and 16 ounces in a pint when before about > 1500 there were 15 ounces in pound? Um, there are 20 ounces in an Imperial pint, not 16. The American pint is 16 different-sized ounces than the English standard. You're *assuming* a reason for the change based on incorrect values. > If not made 16 from 15 by design, then > was it just coincidence that they changed the ounces to 16 when they already > had fluid ounces at 16 - that the body that was to standardize weights and > measures used the same number 16 was just coincidence? You're taking England to be the whole world. Not even close. There were variant pounds in use then, as there are now. The English pint came into common usage as the volume occupied by one pound of wheat or 1/8 of a gallon back when it was the volume of 8 pounds of wheat. With the creation of the Imperial gallon, the pint became larger - from 16 to 20 ounces. >>Ounces came from Latin, so did >>librum for pound. That's why they're abbreviated "lb." > > The WORD came from latin. In the early centuries in England before > standardization, there were 15 ounces in a pound. > Did the romans have 15 ounces or 13 or how many in apound? It's a little funny for you to be asking that question. For somebody who's ostensibly been involved with standards and measures for 30 years as you claim, it would seem to be incumbent on you to know some history of what you're working in. The Romans used neither a 15-ounce pound or one of 13 ounces. Look it up, measure-master. "1215 - reign of King John (lackland) An agreement to have a national standard of weights and measures was incorporated into the magna carta. 1266 - reign of Henry III An act of this date established that a penny (money) should weigh the same as 32 grains of wheat, twenty pennies to make one ounce, and twelve ounces to the pound. Eight pounds was to be the weight of a gallon of wine. You will notice the link between money and weight, and that 240 pennies equals one pound. 1304 - reign of Edward I This is where things got complicated. A statute declared that for medicines a pound would be of 20 shillings, or 12 ounces. All other things would be weighed with a pound containing 15 ounces - in all cases an ounce being 20 pennies. 1532 - reign of Henry VIII An act of this year laid down that butchers should sell meat by haver du pois weight - from where we get avoirdupois." <http://home.clara.net/brianp/history.html> Here's a fun bit of info on the changes and evolutions in measures in England, a bit of the continent and the US. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A471476> >>The language of the pharmacy is Latin. Look here for measures still in >>use millennia later. And note that volume measures were merely the >>volumes of known weights. > > <http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manuf...al-glossary/ph > armaceutical-abbreviations.html#Weights-measures> > > I did look, and I found no such information. The link you put up has > absolutley nothing about measures coming from latin or Rome. Um, do go back and see it again. The words come from the original latin and do define volumes - by weight - all based on the "grain" as the basic unit. Volumes were computed by the amount of space a specific number of seeds would occupy. I assumed that you would know the origins of at least some of them since you claim to be actively involved in > And their are only weights, not volumes. Um I said that up above. Here, let me refresh your memory... "And note that volume measures were merely the volumes of known weights." See how much you can learn if you just read what's in front of you? > And your link only has the abbreviations for frequency of dose in latin - > which by way was the language of the church and was in use as a dead > language in many sciences. Read your links more carefully next time. Bite my entire ass. Ok? The basic unit of weight - the grain - comes directly from the Romans. *Everything* after that was posited on that standard. >>"...The avoirdupois ounce, the unit commonly used in the United >>States, is 1/16 pound or about 28.3495 grams.... The word ounce is >>from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was >>divided into 12 ounces. The word "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the >>same root. The symbol "oz" is from the old Italian word onza (now >>spelled oncia) for an ounce." >> > the derivation of the word "meter" may well be greek, but it didn't mean the > greeks defined the ISO meter How splendidly irrelevant and smelling like a red herring. The fact is that the Romans *did* define the pound. Now we're only talking about ISO standards? Moving the goalposts a bit are we...? >>and... >> >>"fluid ounce: >> >>"A traditional unit of liquid volume, called the fluid ounce to avoid >>confusion with the weight ounce. In the U. S. customary system there >>are 16 fluid ounces in a pint, so each fluid ounce represents >>1.804,687 cubic inches or 29.573,531 milliliters. In the British >>imperial system there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, so each >>fluid ounce represents about 1.733,871 cubic inches or 28.413,063 >>milliliters. A fluid ounce of water weighs just a bit more than one >>ounce avoirdupois." >><http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000717.html> >> >>Base 8 is a rare system with 10 being the most common, then 7, 12, 24, >>60, and 365 for measuring time. > > Apparently you are not technically trained. base 10 is less common than > binary or octal. The binary method, the basis of all computers, was used by > Russian peasants for hundreds of years. It is the math of dna. Bullshit. Any math is the math of DNA. In fact, you could more reasonably say that base 4 is the math of DNA. > Octal is the basis for nearly all programming, > The other numbers you claim are bases are almost unheard of as bases. The > numbers you cite are used in the context of base 10 - a base 10 "12" is 12 > units. A base 7 "12" is 8 units. > >>Nothing is commonly base 8. These >>units are a triumph of human resistance to change, not some superior >>calculational creation. >> >>The cup being 8 ounces is a coincidence of convenience. >> > So it is your learned position that all the measures noted are happenstance > and mere convenience. Aside from this shittiness of that statement, it does appear that I'm more learned about measures and standards than you are, despite your claims of many decades of experience with them. You're sadly ignorant about common conventions, history and sources of modern measure. > -That they are all of the same 8 and its multiples are coincidence, <LOL> They are divisions of a whole divided in half many times because halving is something that can be done by eye and doesn't require anything more sophisticated than that two people agree that it's a fair division. So a gallon can be divided in half, then in half again then in half again and, voila a pint. The value applied to the original gallon is arbitrary; that is it has no natural reason for being exactly what it is, as is the case with *all* measurement. > -that the universal standard for lab calibration being the nexis is just > coincidence > -that the steam/water measurement units that simplify calculation to an > eighth of that required by metrics are just coincidence > - that when the Academy coordinated all these measurements to a standard, > it was done willy- nilly and without coordination - so it is all just > happenstance Still caught up in only the formalized standards, aren't you? Still trying to make the ones endorsed by "official" groups the only ones? Don't be silly. The citations you just offered are merely the latest in the ongoing saga of defining and formalizing measurements and values. They're the newest, not the end of the line. >>>------------------- Similar for the metric system, except someone >>>in France decided that one millionth of the distance from the >>>equator to the pole was better than using the weight of water in a >>>measured container that those evil English were using. >>> >>>They then set the nexis at 1ml liquid = 1gram mass = 1 cubic >>>centimeter volume when using water, so instruments could also be >>>calibrated easily in the metric system. >> >>The laws of physics set those relationships, not some committee. > > No, you are once again wrong. Laws of physics are phenomena that merely > exist, they do not establish nexi. Pay careful attention. I cc of water weighs a gram because it does. The organizing committees merely posited a definition based on what already existed. It weighed (and massed) what it did, so they named that weight and mass a gram. It was a matter of *creating* convenience. > On the other hand, humans wanting to be able to establish an easy > standard to calibrate instruments when unable to send the device out to a > calibration lab then must calibrate by using a common medium, and they NEED > a common point. You seem to be stuck in a lab. Come out to the real world and see what the vast majority of people do. They don't live in your world of such pecksniffian precision. They live in a sea of human scale measures. > If you had basic technical physics, if you had ever done any of the > calibration labs which perform these tasks as part of the basic physics > courses, then you would know that you would pass the course after you > understood that the three basic western measurement standards were all > designed. western science is not based on happy coincidence. Do try to understand the difference between engineering and science. Science gathers information, often without any sense of its application, and maybe engineering uses it. Engineering is an application of practical principles derived from experience. Engineering is a discipline of approximations. Murphy's Law came from engineers, not scientists. I had a big sign over my desk at Westinghouse that said, "Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with a hatchet..." Not original, but exactly what the real world demands. > And if you were on any of the committees that establish standards (I have > been on a US national standards committee for over 30 years), you would know > we integrate the standards all the time, but we don't publish explanations > of what parts we do or do not integrate. This makes no sense. It would be interesting to know exactly what standards you're busily integrating. And why you seem not to know where they originally came from. > But > >>it is why the basic unit was so designated. It's no longer that >>distance measure, but something hopelessly out of the hands of >>amateurs. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light >>in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. >> > determined by measuring the original platinum iridium bar Which was made to reflect the calculated value of a meter. >>>------------ humans remember 3s and 4s groups more readily than any >>>other values >> >>Hence phone numbers. But how about postal codes...? > > check the names for the acronym for zip code and ask yourself if the > creators considered human parameters. Jeeezus. Slow down. I just agreed with you. We can remember groups of 3 or 4 more easily and quickly. But we can also remember longer strings of numbers when they become important to us. > The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted > without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow > and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better > than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers. Sure they do. But ease of utility has made base 10 far and away the most common. Look at metric, look at currencies, look at classification systems from libraries to factory inventory. As for it's being "basic to human," I don't thinks anyone has said that. Merely that it's easier to calculate with it. >>>sets of 8 is the most natural when using octal or counting when >>>your thumbs are used as the next digit (why octal for the >>>uneducated? count to eight twice using your fingers as the ones and >>> use the thumbs as the next-place-holder eights, and you get two >>>thumbs worth, i.e., 16 - you can count to sixteen on your hands >>>without remembering in octal, while the evil enemy the french with >>>their new-fangled metrics can only count to ten before they have to >>> scratch a mark in the dirt to go higher) >> >>Primitive people don't use anything like that. They work off base 10 >>for the most part as the numbers of commerce and trade and make >>multiples of 10 by secondary gestures. Count all the fingers - that's >>10, then count them again and tap the wrist - that's 20. Then count >>them again and tap halfway up the forearm - that's 30, and so forth. >>I've seen that in widely separated cultures. >> > seen it in any cultures not already influenced by western culture? > You cannot have. <LOL> Right. You must have that ability to read minds - what's it called - mental neuropathy. Yeah, that's it. I'm typing slowly here. Base 10 is the most commonly used numerication system because it's more readily useful than any other one. > And if you will note, I said that the change was to 8 by human design, done > by those who felt they had the answer to ills by moving from the old 3-4 to > a new 8 system. I know well firsthand of the politics of the move to change > to metrics, and it was not for improved efficiency for the US. You're merely guessing. So you're saying that in the 15th century, people knew about the 3-4 business and consciously decided to start using 8 as a common factor? I'd like to see a source for that. I flat out disbelieve it. What does counting on your fingers have to do with liquid measure? >>>the original metric had (and some still do have) 100 degrees in a >>>circle, 100 degrees between water boiling and freezing, >> >>I've never seen anything even remotely like this. > > And thus it must not exist, and so all information about it or its > derivation is false? No, sludgewit. It means I've never seen anything like that. It means I can't speak to it. > FYI, The "degrees" of 100 "degrees" in a circle are called gradians. All HP > engineeering calculators that I have seen have it. > > FYI, Celsius and centigrade (and Kelvin) thermometers are calibrated by > making 100 gradations between boiling water and an ice water solution (they > are .01 degree apart. > > always linear because they measured expansion in two dimensions. > >>>100 parts >>>to a time and geometry minute, >> >>Military minute. Time-study minute. But not common currency. >> > The use of 100 resisted because the ten was not a natural number and did not > work. "Natural number." Right. So 12 eggs is a more "natural" number. Or 7 days. Or 60 minutes. Or 6 bottles of beer. >> > 10 increments in everything. works >> >>>ok in theory, and quite well in many applications, but in geometry, >>>in time, in most water-based applications such as steam >>>calculations which were devised to be simple by using "specific" >>>parameters, forces (several measures), pressures (there are >>>probably six or seven metric measures that can drive the engineer >>>nuts), and rapid mental calculation of small digital amounts, the >>>British 3-4 and octal length-force-second system and the 60 >>>multiple time, temperature, and geometry units beats the original >>>metric length-meter-mass hands down. >> >>Sorry. No. If that were the case, all those engineers I worked with at >>Westinghouse would still be using those units. The simple fact of the >>matter is that functioning in 10s and multiples and divisibles of tens >>is simpler for any sort of computation you want to consider. > > computer - (all binary) Binary is easier for *machines* to use - a circuit is either open or closed. For people living in the real world, decimal is easier. > and never even close to simpler for steam power calculations. Don't be silly. Watts is a perfectly fine defining value for calculations of power. It's like saying there's a "natural" way to calculate how much water a pump moves. We stick with horsepower or joules or calories as definitions because of the sheer perversity of humans who don't want to change a familiar unit. There are many such units in currency all over the world. The convenient ones survive. The other fall by the wayside, no matter what the committees say. > the europeans to this day can't even use the right measure for weight - they > use the unit for mass as weight. <LOL> Jeez. Where they're interchangeable and so defined, like in earth's gravity well, it's six of one; half a dozen of another. Um, that's base 12. >>These numbering systems are holdovers from earlier times and remain >>conventions mostly because we're familiar with them. > > If ten is so simple, why were those unnatural systems like the sexagesimal > of the baylonianian empire, the binary of the Russians, the septal of > Univac, and 3-4 of Europe, the egyptian system, and all the other > non-decimal systems, developed? Because they liked unnatural? One cultures > natural is another cultures awkward. Not really, it's because that genius who would develop the concept of zero hadn't come along yet. That lack was one of the major problems with that Babylonian system. Ten is a simple system base as evidenced by the legal, if not customary, adoption of the metric system by virtually every country on earth. History, old fellow, history. There is no "natural." >>Getting people to >>change is an interesting exercise. My grandparents were born in Italy >>in the late 1800's. The spoke of both "kili" and "libri" when talking >>about weight measures. "Gallone" was the standard liquid measure, >>except they also said that "quatro litri fa un gallone." "Four liters >>make a gallon." > > again a four from a native measure system Nah. It was to create a compromise between different standards. The American gallon is four quarts; they're just fitting the familiar ("litri") into the new, to them, system. Relative measures, close enough for daily living. >>>All those odd measure - chains, barrels, tons, are standards for >>>specific purpose that were used by both countries in international >>>commerce are blamed on the british system. >> >>Every culture has had unique measures that suited the needs they >>filled. No one blamed measures on anyone else, they merely used their >>own. And still do except for commerce that crosses borders, and even >>then many still do. You can still buy koku of rice in Japan. >> >>>As I understand, one of >>>the french kings had all of France surveyed in great part to scrap >>>the old and get the new measure in place >> >>That would be Napoleon. And he had all the houses in France uniquely >>numbered. That's where the cosmetic company called "The house of 4711" >>got its name. >> > no, it was well before napoleon. An early Louis. > >>>or so the story goes >> >>Um, sure. Soon to be a major motion picture. > > actually, it was in a documentary on maps. > >>Pastorio > > bottom line - all that you get to see is not all that occurs. FOITN. You're trying to make the world history of measurements what happened in England. And you're trying to make your experience into a universal. And you're trying to say that your definitions are the only ones. Mirror, mirror on the wall.... Pastorio |
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there is ounces to a cup
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trek fan wrote:
> there is ounces to a cup > Doctor Valentine hopes to announce He is making enormous amounts. He's invented a bra Called Peps-Ooh-La-La That delivers more bounce to the ounce. Ogden Nash -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Decluttering: http://decluttering.blogspot.com Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. |
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"trek fan" > wrote in message
... > there is ounces to a cup ..125 cups to the ounce. *cough* Marc |
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Marc Wolfe wrote: > "trek fan" > wrote in message > ... > > there is ounces to a cup > > .125 cups to the ounce. > > *cough* > > Marc DD cups bounce. Sheldon |
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In article >, "Bob (this one)" > wrote:
>-- [someone else] wrote: [ Very big snip of lots of interesting stuff. ] >> The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted >> without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow >> and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better >> than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers. > >Sure they do. But ease of utility has made base 10 far and away the >most common. Look at metric, look at currencies, look at >classification systems from libraries to factory inventory. > >As for it's being "basic to human," I don't thinks anyone has said >that. Merely that it's easier to calculate with it. G'day Bob, I'm curious about this -- are you sure there's something intrinsically "easy" about base 10; or is it just that it's been drummed into us since birth almost? I mean, wouldn't arithmetic be equally "easy" in octal, for example? 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,20,21,22,... etc. (Bearing in mind that the actual symbols used don't *have* to be our familiar 1's, 2's, 3's ... ) Incidentally, some time ago I stumbled on a very interesting outline of the development of standards of measurement in the US. If I can rediscover the link, I'll post it -- but so far my memory is not up to the task when confronted with gigabytes of "information" and thousands of "favo[u]rites". 8-) Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
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"Sheldon" > wrote in message oups.com... > > Marc Wolfe wrote: >> "trek fan" > wrote in message >> ... >> > there is ounces to a cup >> >> .125 cups to the ounce. >> >> *cough* >> >> Marc > > DD cups bounce. > Quite pleasingly. |
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Following up to myself, the document I mentioned below turned out to
be _The Jefferson Report 1790_ "Plan for establishing uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States." Here's a link to the full text: <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/t_jeff.htm> One of the most interesting aspects to my mind is that Jefferson as Secretary of State probably had many things on his mind, nonetheless he completed the report in less than three months, including unavoidable delays and a revision necessitated by more or less concurrent developments in Europe! At an optimistic guess, I reckon a team of modern Government bureaucrats would need three to five years to achieve as much! [ Not much to do with cooking now so followups set to aus.science ] In article >, (Phred) wrote: >In article >, "Bob (this one)" > > wrote: >>-- [someone else] wrote: > >[ Very big snip of lots of interesting stuff. ] > >>> The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted >>> without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow >>> and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better >>> than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers. >> >>Sure they do. But ease of utility has made base 10 far and away the >>most common. Look at metric, look at currencies, look at >>classification systems from libraries to factory inventory. >> >>As for it's being "basic to human," I don't thinks anyone has said >>that. Merely that it's easier to calculate with it. > >G'day Bob, > >I'm curious about this -- are you sure there's something intrinsically >"easy" about base 10; or is it just that it's been drummed into us >since birth almost? > >I mean, wouldn't arithmetic be equally "easy" in octal, for example? >0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,20,21,22,. .. etc. >(Bearing in mind that the actual symbols used don't *have* to be our >familiar 1's, 2's, 3's ... ) > >Incidentally, some time ago I stumbled on a very interesting outline >of the development of standards of measurement in the US. If I can >rediscover the link, I'll post it -- but so far my memory is not up to >the task when confronted with gigabytes of "information" and thousands >of "favo[u]rites". 8-) > >Cheers, Phred. > Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
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In article >, Kenneth > wrote:
>On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:25:10 GMT, >(Phred) wrote: > >>I'm curious about this -- are you sure there's something intrinsically >>"easy" about base 10 > >Of course... > >We have ten fingers. But these days we're expected to eschew all things that don't give equal advantage to all people. And that includes carpenters! Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
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"Ann Pacl" > wrote in message ... > There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the different densities? |
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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:41:16 GMT, "Ophelia" >
wrote: > >"Ann Pacl" > wrote in message ... >> There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. > >These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the >same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the >different densities? > If the author of the recipe is any good, she/he will have allowed for the different densities of ingredients in the measurements in the first place. modom Only superficial people don't judge by appearances. -- Oscar Wilde |
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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:41:16 -0800, Ophelia wrote
(in article > ): > > "Ann Pacl" > wrote in message > ... >> There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. > > These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the > same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the > different densities? 8 *fluid* ounces, not eight ounces by weight. A cup of flour doesn't weigh the same as a cup of water or rice or cornflakes, but if you're measuring it by the cup, you don't have to worry about the weight density. serene |
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"Michael Odom" > wrote in message ... > On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:41:16 GMT, "Ophelia" > > wrote: > >> >>"Ann Pacl" > wrote in message ... >>> There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. >> >>These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the >>same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the >>different densities? >> > If the author of the recipe is any good, she/he will have allowed for > the different densities of ingredients in the measurements in the > first place. Yes indeed I understand that. What I refer to is the statement that there are 8 ounces to 1 cup. It doesn't state WHAT is. There have been many responses saying something similar. There is nothing about the density of ingredients |
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"serene" > wrote in message al.net... > On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:41:16 -0800, Ophelia wrote > (in article > ): > >> >> "Ann Pacl" > wrote in message >> ... >>> There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. >> >> These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be >> the >> same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the >> different densities? > > 8 *fluid* ounces, not eight ounces by weight. A cup of flour doesn't > weigh the same as a cup of water or rice or cornflakes, but if you're > measuring it by the cup, you don't have to worry about the weight > density. Ahh ok.. so we are using fluid weights. Does that still work out as 8 ounces of cornflakes as opposed to rice? I would have thought that a cup of non fluids would be different? |
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Ophelia wrote:
> "Ahh ok.. so we are using fluid weights. Does that still work out as 8 ounces > of cornflakes as opposed to rice? I would have thought that a cup of non > fluids would be different? Many North American recipes use volume measures for wet and dry ingredients, though flesh is usually measured by weight. Since a recipe is just a list of the proper proportion of each ingredient it doesn't really matter if some of them are low density. I might point out that baking recipes calling for brown sugar usually require that is be packed, because a loose cup of brown sugar could obviously vary a lot on weight while a packed cup is going to be a more consistent amount. |
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"Dave Smith" > wrote in message ... > Ophelia wrote: > >> "Ahh ok.. so we are using fluid weights. Does that still work out as 8 >> ounces >> of cornflakes as opposed to rice? I would have thought that a cup of non >> fluids would be different? > > Many North American recipes use volume measures for wet and dry > ingredients, > though flesh is usually measured by weight. Since a recipe is just a list > of > the proper proportion of each ingredient it doesn't really matter if some > of > them are low density. I might point out that baking recipes calling for > brown > sugar usually require that is be packed, because a loose cup of brown > sugar > could obviously vary a lot on weight while a packed cup is going to be a > more > consistent amount. Thank you  > |
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Ophelia wrote: > "Ann Pacl" > wrote in message > ... > > There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. > > These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the > same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the > different densities? So long as the *ratio relationships* are maintained it makes no difference by what method one measures. Whether one chooses volume of wieght is merely a matter of convention and/or convenience... so long as one is consistant. |
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This thread has me so confused!! I've struggled for years to understand
the differnce between an 'A' cup, 'B' cup, 'C' cup etc. and now someone throws 'ounces into the equation? Will it never end? Ophelia wrote: >"serene" > wrote in message ual.net... > > >>On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:41:16 -0800, Ophelia wrote >>(in article > ): >>snip >> > > |
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On 27 Feb 2005 13:12:00 -0800, "Sheldon" >
wrote: > >Ophelia wrote: >> "Ann Pacl" > wrote in message >> ... >> > There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. >> >> These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not >be the >> same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the >> different densities? > >So long as the *ratio relationships* are maintained it makes no >difference by what method one measures. Whether one chooses volume of >wieght is merely a matter of convention and/or convenience... so long >as one is consistant. Howdy, You are correct but for one thing: It is not normally possible to maintain those relationships. As a test, you might try to weigh a cup of flour each day of the week. It is likely that the weights will vary considerably despite your efforts to be consistent. All the best, -- Kenneth If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS." |
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Kenneth wrote: > On 27 Feb 2005 13:12:00 -0800, "Sheldon" > > wrote: > > > > >Ophelia wrote: > >> "Ann Pacl" > wrote in message > >> ... > >> > There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. > >> > >> These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not > >be the > >> same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the > >> different densities? > > > >So long as the *ratio relationships* are maintained it makes no > >difference by what method one measures. Whether one chooses volume of > >wieght is merely a matter of convention and/or convenience... so long > >as one is consistant. > > Howdy, > > You are correct but for one thing: > > It is not normally possible to maintain those relationships. > As a test, you might try to weigh a cup of flour each day of > the week. It is likely that the weights will vary > considerably despite your efforts to be consistent. Highly unlikely to be "considerably"... you pee in your flour? And this is a friggin' loaf of bread, not a NASA space flight to Youranus, Kenny Schmucko. |
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Note that using the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics tables on density
of water at std P, that the weight of one fluid ounce of water at 100C (a standards point) weighs, within 1% accuracy, one aviordupois ounce. and at its most dense, one ounce of water weighs, within 4% accuracy, one avoidupois ounce. (If I wish to change the present std for pressure in measurements, it can be at a common point) Within 5% accuracy, one fluid ounce of water weighs one avoirdupois ounce/ A pint's a pound the world around - assuming you use US pints, use a standard point for water, use a standard pressure, and use the modern government-defined conversions between the two that were put in in the past couple hundred years. A little farther back........... well Ever wonder how the British could have such a large empire with such a small country and so few people, with it having all those various weights and measures so easily done by average humans back then, compared to larger, more wealthy countries who insisted on the intellectual superiority of decimal based measures back then? comments below "Bob (this one)" > wrote in message ... > -- wrote: > > I read all the way through the stuff you wrote here and there's a big > missing piece that you don't seem to grasp. Those standards of measure > were initially arrived at on the street, not in labs or kingly courts > and they weren't necessarily universal, just useful to the time an > place. I think you confuse measure with standard and standard set of measures, and thus miss the core. In short, 1) a measure is a commonly agreed upon amount, , e.g., I'll trade a bag of your oats for a bag of my wheat - "bag of" being the measure. Society makes these informally as the need arises. They use 3s, 4s, and the like. while 2) a standard set of measures is a well known amount having support by a standard. E.g., I'll trade a pound of oats for a pound of wheat. Best guess is that neither you or I have a pound weight in our pocket to use as reference, but we measure it against a standard 1 lb weight. Members of society adopt, not make, these in reponse to a standard being created or defined. And 3) a standard is way to establish the accuracy of a measure, OR force the replacement of an existing measure. In Washington somewhere, there is a block of metal that once was THE US one pound standard. It can be referenced to another standard, e.g., one inch is exactly one of 39.32 equal parts of the platinum irridium 1 meter bar held in Paris. Only an authority makes these. (OK, the bar was replaced, by eager arrogants, by the atomic standard for so many wavelengths of light in a vaccum - against the advice, I might add, of those who advised that just because Einstein found that light is a constant in this gravity field and this space, it may not be always true here - as we recently found it wasn't.) For any usefulness, the measure needs to be some readily available container or device, conceptually recognizable to the user, and preferably already in use. If confusion even peeks out, the government (tribal leader, emporer, etc.) steps in and says what measure is acceptable for commerce. E.g., if your group wants to use a cup and mine want to use a dup, then social commerce is affected, and the government says "Use cups". Dups fade. When that standardizing of the measure by an authority happens, the government almost always at the same time also directly or indirectly assigns a standard for that measure. "The carat shall be the weight of a seed of .....", then writes it down using (in old days) a rare person who can write and very expensive parchment, and sends the word out - on precious stuff, showing how important it is. As time goes on, needed accuracy of the measure increases, and the length from the kings thumb to his nose, measured and a stick of that length put in the royal library to forever be "the yard" (original yard - as good a measure as a meter, once the physical standard is created), no longer can be approximated by holding your arm out - you need a yardstick. And more importantly, as time goes on in a commercial society, more and more specialized measures are created, agreed upon by the users, and enter the stream of commerce. Pretty soon that library at the royal society is full of standards. Simplification is required. SUch as replacing and old standard with a definition in terms of another existing standard, e.g., "the yard shall now be 36 inches. Period. See inches for the standard. Now toss out that old yard stick with the snot on one end and dirt on the other" Common multiples are employeed in this standardizing of measure. E.g., a 15 ounce pound becomes a 16 ounce pound. And if you are required to provide standards that must be replicable before and after an experiement so as to have a standardized set or measurement for that experiment to considered be valid, you need to use readily available AND REPLICABLE items to provide the standard for those measures - water, wavelength of argon, etc. Balance beams of whatever sophistication were common more than > five millennia ago. Standards had to be created to deal with two major > issues - trade and did I grow enough food for us to survive the > winter. Value for value had to be established and the traders and > commercial forces behind them created all the weights. It has been > like a tower of babel throughout human history in the matter of > standards and, to a lesser extent, still is. > > When the measure was to stay within a single culture, it could be as > quirky as they wanted it to be. When it became a matter of usage > between cultures, equivalence had to be established. And it was. And > there were thousands of standards. I'm going to try to give you a > benefit of doubt here and offer the notion that we may be using the > word "standards" to mean different things. > and I saw this after I came to the same conclusion above and responded as above. I do not think, however, that the weights and measures were established millenia ago for international trade, but rather for intranational trade. If you think about it, you are bartering your goods for other goods or even for a weight of gold or silver. And your standard of measure bar you carried in your purse was not the one the other guy carried in his purse, nor the ones the hundred other cultures brought to the port. > You obviously don't know the history of how we got here with our > measures, and you seem to think that standards are those things > preserved in Washington, dismissing what happens at the farmers' > markets. And apart from England. The world is a wider place than that. > And goes back a lot further than medieval England. And goes to many > places and cultures omitted from your considerations. > > > ok - some clarification and background > > > > "Bob (this one)" > wrote in message > > ... > > > >>-- wrote: > >> > > wrote in message > ... > >>> > >>>>In rec.food.cooking, "Bob (this one)" > wrote: > >>>> > >>>>>Dry ounces are still volume measure, like fluid ounces. > >>>> > >>>>Does anyone know how it happened that "ounces" refers to either > >>>>weight or volume, depending on usage? Is there some nexis > >>>>between the two? All I can imagine is that one fluid ounce of > >>>>water at STP weighs one ounce. Is that it? > >>> > >>>as i understand - > >>> > >>>the old labs of the amateur scientists 400-500 years or so back > >>>needed a way to calibrate their instruments (tolerance was somewhat > >>> slack back then than now). Later, after merchants picked up those > >>> measures, they also needed an easy way to be checked. > >>> > >>>Water was commonly available, so weight and temperature scales were > >>> established and agreed upon using water-related parameters. If you > >>> had the container of the correct dimensions, call it one "pint", > >>>and you filled it with water, you had a lb weight. Calibration can > >>>be done. > >>> > >>>So the volume of a pint measure hanging on the wall of the lab > >>>defined the weight of one pound, and the volume of a pint. > >>> > >>>Volume meets weight. > >> > >>Um, no. Weight measures were standardized back then (and before) all > >>over the world, volumes weren't. Merchants came way before scientists. > >> > > First, who standardized them? There was no ISO or like organization. A > > standard is a device to assure common measure. > > Exactly so. The merchants and traders standardized the units between > and amongst themselves. They had to in order to get and give equal > value. No, because in any trade, even though there is more reliance on currency today, value is determined by the buyer and the seller, not by the weight and measure. My jugs of wine of god knows how many liters for your sheep of god knows what weight. Bargain made wihtout scales or measures you couldn't trust anyway. You mistake what was happening then with the world we live in > now. There was no governing body to establish and certify all the > measure units. No, there has ALWAYS been. From the village elder to the tribal leader to the king. (And if you look around, you'll find that even now that > we have them, people still use measures of common currency where they > live. So Brits still talk about their weight in "stones." And if you > wander around in rural China, the only metric measures you'll see are > in factories.) What had to happen was a form of commercial lingua > franca that permitted translations from standard to standard. So Arab > traders used their standards and Europeans theirs. But when they met, > there was a sort of meta-standard that let them translate from one to > the other. > > You must understand that all measuring systems and all units are > agreed-upon constructs. Synthetic methods to establish parity. There's > no such thing as a "natural" measure, only a convenient to the times > and settings one. > Yes, as I noted when you advised the use of ten was natural > Using a seed from the carob plant as the basis for gem valuation > wasn't decreed by royal authority, some street-trader noticed that the > seeds were small and, to the technology of the time, equal in weight. > So by mutual agreement, it became the standard. Later, it became > "official" when some body with political power designated so it. > But it was not a standard before then. It was merely an aid to barter to speed up the experience curve of the initiate who may not know the value of the stone. > Using a different seed to establish the weight of the "grain" as the > base unit for a measurement system is likewise a mutually-agreed-upon > construct. I would dare say that if I the buyer pulled out an fat wheat grain and you the buyer pulled out a millet grain, and each demanded their standard was true and pay up, your fascinating romantric scenario about merchants devising standards would end in some altercation between merchants. > > > After the King left that business, the Royal Academy, formed of amateur > > scientists (were there any others back then), standardized measures. > > Sorry, no. Kings didn't get into it in creating the units way back > when. They were created and implemented on the street. Those bodies > either formalized what was already going on or created new ones, or at > least attempted to simplify what was already in common usage. As when > Elizabeth I decreed that a mile was exactly 8 furlongs, enlarging the > mile from the Roman 5,000 feet to 5280 feet. It was an attempt to > "unify" two disparate systems. In reality, it eliminated the earlier one. > Yes, but 5280 is a multiple of 8, and clearly not one of the evil enemy french multiples of ten. A loyal move by Elizabeth. No, governments did not, and do not, create units. They created standards. > > Since there were no lab service companies, they adopted the water > > standard. And all measures from time before that, no matter where the WORD > > came from be it sanskrit or latin, were changed to meet the standard. > > That's been a constant process. Measures and their units have *always* > been in a state of flux. That water standard business isn't true, > though. In actual fact, an American pint doesn't weigh a pound. NOr > does an Imperial pint. > The American pint weighs exactly one pound at 212F at about 29.92 inches HG. (and 212 F would be the perfect temperature to measure if one is steam power oriented. And at other temps and pressures, the 1% one gets at std P was easily close enough for rudimentary lab work in the 1600s. but not enough for a modern measure > > The 15 ounces of a pound used from the 12 century was changed to 16 > > ounces, > > > > http://www.lajzar.co.uk/unit/system/imp_brit.html > > Do go find some history about the evolutions of what pounds were and > have become. This web site is about time of the British empire - 1844. > Hardly a long view of history, and confined to one country. And even > so, looking at the standardization of volume measure, it's based on > the weight of water. > > "The British Imperial gallon was defined in 1824 to be the volume of > water which weighs 10 pounds at 62 deg F with a pressure of 30 inHg. > In 1963 it was defined to be the space occupied by 10 pounds of > distilled water of density 0.998859 g/ml weighed in air of density > 0.001217 g/ml against weights of density 8.136 g/ml. The gallon is now > officially defined relative to SI units; the above value is exact." > > It's based on weight. > Note however, several interesting things- First, merchants did not define it, the government did. How does this sit with your position of merchants as all standards creators? Second, I doubt the government created the measure out of the sky. Third, note that there is EXACTLY 10 pounds and exactly 30inHg. Why is that in 1824? Fourth, note that WATER is used as the standard. ANd still is. The same water that, with the proper accuracy and the proper temperature, weighs 16 ounces in a pint. The same water as a standard that makes 16 fluid ounces of water weigh a pound Fifth - that it has ONE gallon. It defines the gallon, not the number of gills or pints in the gallon. Nor how many of anything in it. So I do not see how it is germaine to the discussion on why someone did or did not try to get 16 ounces to equal 16 ounces > > In our labs, we had to replicate all the old means of achieving a > > standard for measures. > > We didn't do that at all. In modern times we changed a lot of them to > make them more consistently exact, but we didn't go weigh out 8 pounds > of barley or wheat to make a gallon, we gave it a volumetric measure > apart from any weight measures because we now have the technology to > make exact-volume vessels. Look at how the gallon was finally defined. > Nothing to do with "all the old means." And also note that the unit > "10" is the basic consideration. > > >>If you read old recipes - I mean OLD - you'll find that volume > >>measures were given as "half an eggshell" and "a wineglass of..." and > >>"the size of a pigeon's egg." > > > > I do have two very old cookbooks- and they do measure as you said, However, > > first, an 18th century kitchen is not a lab, and second, they are measuring > > weights by using volume, as acceptable a method as measuring a force by > > using a mass. > > I'm talking 5th century, not 18th. which culture ? They measured weights by weight and > volume by widely varying variability. As for culinary measure, what's > actually being measured is ratios. How much flour to how much water to > how much salt to how much butter, etc. That's how professional recipes > are written, because finally that's what it's about. Commercial > recipes are stated in percents based off one ingredient. > I have consulted to commercial kitchens, and the recipes there were by weight, not by ratio. Besides, if it were in ratio, what would it say? 5% butter and 7% raisens and 18% flour? > The units for home use are arrived at by custom, not decree of a > government agency. So in the US, the vast preponderance of people cook > by volume for reasons I've already explained. Elsewhere, they use > weight for their particular reasons. But it's silly to say they're > measuring weights by volume. The converse is equally true and equally > false, that Germans, for example, are measuring volume by weight when > they use their kitchen scales. > You really are having a hard time with lab 101 here. Once again, I will explain. There are two ways to measure. Direct, and indirect. For example, if I want you to go six miles and turn, and I tell you to drive for six minutes at 60 miles and hour and then turn, how is that distance travelled different from the distance travelled by my telling you to go 6 miles and then turn? The same. One is direct, and the other indirect. Equally valid measures to get six miles covered. So if I want a pound of butter in the recipe, I can either tell you to put in two cups of butter (indirect) or I can tell you to put in one pound of butter (direct). But more to the efficiency of indirect measu I can tell you to put in 1 tbsp of vanilla extract (done by one utensil measure), or Ican tell you to put in 10 grams of vanilla extract (put in by getitng a clean container for the scale, measuring tare of a clean utensil for the scale, transferring extract to the container, reading a measurement off a scale of indicating units, adding more as required, and then adding it to the recipe). The tablespoon is an indirect measurement that is far more efficient in mixing the cake than the direct measurement of the weight I specified in the recipe. > >>Whereas weights were given in specific > >>units. Commerce demanded transferable units hence the tiny "carat" > >>which was the weight of an exceedingly small seed. Here's a document > >>from the 13th century that deals with weights... > >><http://www.sizes.com/library/Britain/ponderibus.htm> > >> > > which has little to do with standardizing measures for the required > > interchageability and science of an era that came 300 years later. > > It has *everything* to do with it. That's where the bases come from - > custom. > > But is that what you're talking about here; narrowing it down to this > one point? That modern standardization is happening because earlier > people were somehow stupid and we've now reached the pinnacle of > measurement wisdom? > > I thought we were talking about what the actual measures were and are. > I don't think we're talking about the same things. It seems that > you're talking about global standards and I'm talking about ones used > by the people who need them. And who create them to suit the > conditions and situations where they are. And the sources of modern > measure. So the carat still is the unit that jewelers use, defined to > modern technological capacity. > > In any event, do you think that modern standards just sprang from > Topsy's head with no historical roots? Why retain the names from > thousands of years before if they weren't evolutions of old, old, old > standards? > > >>" the wine gallon is the space occupied by a quantity of wheat > >>weighing 8 pounds. This interpretation is made explicit in some of the > >>other manuscript versions. However, what we now call the wine gallon, > >>used time out of mind by the English excise before being legalized in > >>1707, and the basis of the U. S. gallon, contains 231 cubic inches. > >>That volume is as close to the volume of 8 liber mercatoriae of wine > >>as to the volume of 8 Troy pounds of wheat." Weights were > >>well-established, volumes were not. > > > > > > Weight NAMES were well established, but not the standard of that measure. > > Did you not see the rather exact definitions there? They couldn't > define them any better than their technology permitted. So it's silly > to fault people in the 15th century for not being able to measure out > to four decimal places. Standards in common usage needed to be only as > precise as the demands placed on them. So the precision needed was > what was created. And no more than that. Now we want everything to be > more detailed and systematic because our society requires it. Machine > tools need enormous precision to create the mechanical and electronic > goods we need now. In an agrarian society, that precision wasn't > needed or useful. So different kinds of standards. > > > further, there were 31.5 wine gallons in a barrel; 36 beer gallons in a > > barrel, 40 spirit gallons in a barrel, 42 gallons of petroleum in a barrel > > But they were all measured in gallons, weren't they? That's the final > standard. Not all barrels need to be the same size, do they? Different > sizes for different applications. How much does a barrel of petroleum > hold? How about a barrel of paint? Barrel is trade-specific as a unit > of measure. It's a standard for each of the users. Different from each > other, but standard within the trade. > no, a barrel is a noiw a standard number of gallons. Has been STANDARDized for soem time. Your link was a herring for the topic. > >>"A Chef of Fustian consisteth of Fourteen Ells. [A Chef of Sindon > >>containeth Ten Ells.]" Ells are yards. > > > > Sorry, you are wrong again - Ells vary from 27 inches (Flemish) to 45 inches > > (French) > > Yes, I am technically wrong. Ells aren't yards. They emerge from the > same need for standards, though. Someone makes fabric and wants to > sell it. How much have they made? A standard that will be understood > by purchasers needs to exist. It doesn't have to be the same > worldwide, it just needs to suit the demands at hand. A local > standard. But if that weaver wants to sell far away, he'd better be > able to explain to those customers how much they're getting so they > understand it. > > That's why Swahili was created. A synthetic language to use between > traders who didn't speak the same languages and didn't necessarily use > the same units of measure. > > "ell > "a traditional unit of length used primarily for measuring cloth. > In the English system, one ell equals 20 nails, 45 inches, or 1.25 > yards; in metric terms, an English ell equals exactly 1.143 meters. > The word comes from the Latin ulna, which originally meant the elbow > and is now the name of the bone on the outside of the forearm. > Unfortunately, the same word ulna was also used for the yard, creating > frequent confusion between the two units in medieval documents. > Probably the ell originated through a custom of measuring lengths of > cloth using two forearms, with the hands touching or overlapping. The > ell was used with a similar length in France (where it was called the > aune). In Scotland, the ell was practically the same as the yard, > being equal to 37 Scots inches or 37.2 English inches (94.5 > centimeters). This Scottish length appears to reflect an old practice > of cloth merchants in giving an extra inch with each yard, to allow > for any irregular cutting at the ends of the piece. In eastern Europe, > the ell was a shorter distance: see next entry. > > "elle > "a traditional unit of distance in German speaking countries. The > elle varied considerably, but it was always shorter than the English > ell or French aune. A typical value in northern Germany was exactly 2 > fuss (German feet), which would be close to 24 inches or 60 > centimeters. In the south, the elle was usually longer, about 2.5 > fuss. In Vienna, the elle was eventually standardized at 30.68 inches > (77.93 centimeters). Although the German word elle is often translated > "yard" in English, this is not a very good equivalent. > and after all that, an ell is still not a yard, as you said, is it? > >>Fustian is a fabric and they're > >>still measured by the yard in the US today. > > > > We measure all cloth in shops by the yard. By the meter elsewhere. > > Uh, sure. That's why I said "in the US today" so there would be a > distinction like I've kept throughout this. > > >>Old, old habits die hard. > >> > >>>The old easily-remembered-by-ordinary-uneducated-humans 3 by 4 > >>>system in use at the time was not good enough for them, so someone > >>>wanted to change it to a more logical 8 based system. > >>> > >>>Divide the measure into 2x8 parts and call it an ounce, and if you > >>>are not too careful defining which measure it was, and either by > >>>design so we could remember it or by accident, we get 16 ounces > >>>and 16 ounces, weight and volume. > >> > >>This is unfortunately all fictional. > > > > Sorry, you are once again wrong. > > No. Not about the division of "the measure into 2x8 parts." The ounce > predates the cup (whether imperial or US measure) which became a > convention much, much later. > the NAME ounce predates the present ounce. Did you not see the link to the 15 ounce pound being changed to a 16 ounce pound? Ounces of weight are different, and still are. And I seriously doubt the ounce came after the cup as you say. Cups are over 30,000 years old. > > First, anyone with leadership traning for high stress environments knows > > the basic rule of three items for low level skills in humans. One of the > > basics, an absolute fundamental. And the rule of four. > > <LOL> I didn't dispute the business about groups of 3 or 4, just what > you're claiming about 16 ounces being some universal. Recall that I > agreed by citing that phone numbers are broken into groups of 3 and 4. > > > Second, I could once again explain it, > > But you haven't explained it, merely asserted it. > > > but how about you tell us all why > > there are 16 ounces in a pound and 16 ounces in a pint when before about > > 1500 there were 15 ounces in pound? > > Um, there are 20 ounces in an Imperial pint, not 16. That is pure obfuscation. You are ducking the question once again. If you have any knowledge of measurement history at all, you know there were two gallons in england - the ale gallon and the wine gallon. And the Imperial gallon was not invented until three centuries AFTER the pound was changed from 15 to 16 ounces. Back when the pint was 16 ounces. You did not answer - why did they change from the 15 ounce to the 16 ounce pound, when they had a 16 ounce pint? And while you are at it, why does 16 ounces of water at 212F weigh one pound? And what does one pound of steam mean? The American pint > is 16 different-sized ounces than the English standard. You're > *assuming* a reason for the change based on incorrect values. > > > If not made 16 from 15 by design, then > > was it just coincidence that they changed the ounces to 16 when they already > > had fluid ounces at 16 - that the body that was to standardize weights and > > measures used the same number 16 was just coincidence? > > You're taking England to be the whole world. Not even close. There > were variant pounds in use then, as there are now. The English pint > came into common usage as the volume occupied by one pound of wheat or > 1/8 of a gallon back when it was the volume of 8 pounds of wheat. With > the creation of the Imperial gallon, the pint became larger - from 16 > to 20 ounces. > > >>Ounces came from Latin, so did > >>librum for pound. That's why they're abbreviated "lb." > > > > The WORD came from latin. In the early centuries in England before > > standardization, there were 15 ounces in a pound. > > Did the romans have 15 ounces or 13 or how many in apound? > > It's a little funny for you to be asking that question. For somebody > who's ostensibly been involved with standards and measures for 30 > years as you claim, it would seem to be incumbent on you to know some > history of what you're working in. The Romans used neither a 15-ounce > pound or one of 13 ounces. Look it up, measure-master. > > "1215 - reign of King John (lackland) > An agreement to have a national standard of weights and measures > was incorporated into the magna carta. > > 1266 - reign of Henry III > An act of this date established that a penny (money) should weigh > the same as 32 grains of wheat, twenty pennies to make one ounce, and > twelve ounces to the pound. Eight pounds was to be the weight of a > gallon of wine. You will notice the link between money and weight, and > that 240 pennies equals one pound. > > 1304 - reign of Edward I > This is where things got complicated. A statute declared that for > medicines a pound would be of 20 shillings, or 12 ounces. All other > things would be weighed with a pound containing 15 ounces - in all > cases an ounce being 20 pennies. > > 1532 - reign of Henry VIII > An act of this year laid down that butchers should sell meat by > haver du pois weight - from where we get avoirdupois." > <http://home.clara.net/brianp/history.html> > > Here's a fun bit of info on the changes and evolutions in measures in > England, a bit of the continent and the US. > <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A471476> > > >>The language of the pharmacy is Latin. Look here for measures still in > >>use millennia later. And note that volume measures were merely the > >>volumes of known weights. > > > > <http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manuf...al-glossary/ph > > armaceutical-abbreviations.html#Weights-measures> > > > > I did look, and I found no such information. The link you put up has > > absolutley nothing about measures coming from latin or Rome. > > Um, do go back and see it again. no change - the latin is for frequncy of dosage. Perhaps you have the wrong URL? The words come from the original > latin and do define volumes - by weight - all based on the "grain" as > the basic unit. Volumes were computed by the amount of space a > specific number of seeds would occupy. I assumed that you would know > the origins of at least some of them since you claim to be actively > involved in > > > And their are only weights, not volumes. > > Um I said that up above. Here, let me refresh your memory... "And note > that volume measures were merely the volumes of known weights." See > how much you can learn if you just read what's in front of you? > > > And your link only has the abbreviations for frequency of dose in latin - > > which by way was the language of the church and was in use as a dead > > language in many sciences. Read your links more carefully next time. > > Bite my entire ass. Ok? The basic unit of weight - the grain - comes > directly from the Romans. *Everything* after that was posited on that > standard. > > >>"...The avoirdupois ounce, the unit commonly used in the United > >>States, is 1/16 pound or about 28.3495 grams.... The word ounce is > >>from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was > >>divided into 12 ounces. The word "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the > >>same root. The symbol "oz" is from the old Italian word onza (now > >>spelled oncia) for an ounce." > >> > > the derivation of the word "meter" may well be greek, but it didn't mean the > > greeks defined the ISO meter > > How splendidly irrelevant and smelling like a red herring. The fact is > that the Romans *did* define the pound. Now we're only talking about > ISO standards? Moving the goalposts a bit are we...? > > >>and... > >> > >>"fluid ounce: > >> > >>"A traditional unit of liquid volume, called the fluid ounce to avoid > >>confusion with the weight ounce. In the U. S. customary system there > >>are 16 fluid ounces in a pint, so each fluid ounce represents > >>1.804,687 cubic inches or 29.573,531 milliliters. In the British > >>imperial system there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, so each > >>fluid ounce represents about 1.733,871 cubic inches or 28.413,063 > >>milliliters. A fluid ounce of water weighs just a bit more than one > >>ounce avoirdupois." > >><http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000717.html> > >> > >>Base 8 is a rare system with 10 being the most common, then 7, 12, 24, > >>60, and 365 for measuring time. > > > > Apparently you are not technically trained. base 10 is less common than > > binary or octal. The binary method, the basis of all computers, was used by > > Russian peasants for hundreds of years. It is the math of dna. > > Bullshit. Any math is the math of DNA. In fact, you could more > reasonably say that base 4 is the math of DNA. > > > Octal is the basis for nearly all programming, > > The other numbers you claim are bases are almost unheard of as bases. The > > numbers you cite are used in the context of base 10 - a base 10 "12" is 12 > > units. A base 7 "12" is 8 units. > > > >>Nothing is commonly base 8. These > >>units are a triumph of human resistance to change, not some superior > >>calculational creation. > >> > >>The cup being 8 ounces is a coincidence of convenience. > >> > > So it is your learned position that all the measures noted are happenstance > > and mere convenience. > > Aside from this shittiness of that statement, it does appear that I'm > more learned about measures and standards than you are, despite your > claims of many decades of experience with them. You're sadly ignorant > about common conventions, history and sources of modern measure. > and once agian you did not answer the question, but shifted topic. > -That they are all of the same 8 and its multiples are coincidence, > > <LOL> They are divisions of a whole divided in half many times because > halving is something that can be done by eye and doesn't require > anything more sophisticated than that two people agree that it's a > fair division. So a gallon can be divided in half, then in half again > then in half again and, voila a pint. The value applied to the > original gallon is arbitrary; that is it has no natural reason for > being exactly what it is, as is the case with *all* measurement. > > > -that the universal standard for lab calibration being the nexis is just > > coincidence > > -that the steam/water measurement units that simplify calculation to an > > eighth of that required by metrics are just coincidence > > - that when the Academy coordinated all these measurements to a standard, > > it was done willy- nilly and without coordination - so it is all just > > happenstance > > Still caught up in only the formalized standards, aren't you? Still > trying to make the ones endorsed by "official" groups the only ones? > > Don't be silly. The citations you just offered are merely the latest > in the ongoing saga of defining and formalizing measurements and > values. They're the newest, not the end of the line. > > >>>------------------- Similar for the metric system, except someone > >>>in France decided that one millionth of the distance from the > >>>equator to the pole was better than using the weight of water in a > >>>measured container that those evil English were using. > >>> > >>>They then set the nexis at 1ml liquid = 1gram mass = 1 cubic > >>>centimeter volume when using water, so instruments could also be > >>>calibrated easily in the metric system. > >> > >>The laws of physics set those relationships, not some committee. > > > > No, you are once again wrong. Laws of physics are phenomena that merely > > exist, they do not establish nexi. > > Pay careful attention. I cc of water weighs a gram because it does. You have a very one-facet view of this. Think - Did the meter come before the liter or the gram, or were they defined in relation to the meter? Was it that they defined 1 gram as 1 cc of water at its maximum density? Which is EXACTLY what they did. Was it that they defined a ml as 1 gram of water at its maximum density. Which is EXACTLY what they did. man put them there at that spot, not God aligning them off the millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator to that point. > The organizing committees merely posited a definition based on what > already existed. It weighed (and massed) what it did, so they named > that weight and mass a gram. It was a matter of *creating* convenience. > How is this any different from what I said before you wandered off about no, its the laws of physics? The meter and the liter and the gram all existed before the French Acadmeie made the metric system? BS. Pure BS. > > On the other hand, humans wanting to be able to establish an easy > > standard to calibrate instruments when unable to send the device out to a > > calibration lab then must calibrate by using a common medium, and they NEED > > a common point. > > You seem to be stuck in a lab. Come out to the real world and see what > the vast majority of people do. They don't live in your world of such > pecksniffian precision. They live in a sea of human scale measures. > and what does that comment have to do with the comment that standards have to be replicable? > > If you had basic technical physics, if you had ever done any of the > > calibration labs which perform these tasks as part of the basic physics > > courses, then you would know that you would pass the course after you > > understood that the three basic western measurement standards were all > > designed. western science is not based on happy coincidence. > > Do try to understand the difference between engineering and science. > Science gathers information, often without any sense of its > application, and maybe engineering uses it. Engineering is an > application of practical principles derived from experience. > Engineering is a discipline of approximations. Murphy's Law came from > engineers, not scientists. I had a big sign over my desk at > Westinghouse that said, "Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, > cut with a hatchet..." Not original, but exactly what the real world > demands. > I know of your firms engineering. They paid me well for several jobs on their steam turbines that their engineers could not make work. > > And if you were on any of the committees that establish standards (I have > > been on a US national standards committee for over 30 years), you would know > > we integrate the standards all the time, but we don't publish explanations > > of what parts we do or do not integrate. > > This makes no sense. And derivatives make no sense to a fourth grader. It does to anyone who makes standards. So what does that mean, "makes no sense", exactly? It would be interesting to know exactly what > standards you're busily integrating. And why you seem not to know > where they originally came from. Ah, Rush Limbaugh who makes statements assuming facts not in evidence and builds on those assumptions to a false conslusion, I DO know where they come from, which is why i am on the commitee. The logic of it is that is you do not know of the bases of measurement theory or its contextual history, you would then not be able to come to valid conclusions. One must have valid experience to find truth, not experience. > > > But > > > >>it is why the basic unit was so designated. It's no longer that > >>distance measure, but something hopelessly out of the hands of > >>amateurs. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light > >>in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. > >> > > determined by measuring the original platinum iridium bar > > Which was made to reflect the calculated value of a meter. > > >>>------------ humans remember 3s and 4s groups more readily than any > >>>other values > >> > >>Hence phone numbers. But how about postal codes...? > > > > check the names for the acronym for zip code and ask yourself if the > > creators considered human parameters. > > Jeeezus. Slow down. I just agreed with you. We can remember groups of > 3 or 4 more easily and quickly. But we can also remember longer > strings of numbers when they become important to us. > > > The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted > > without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow > > and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better > > than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers. > > Sure they do. But ease of utility has made base 10 far and away the > most common. Look at metric, look at currencies, look at > classification systems from libraries to factory inventory. > > As for it's being "basic to human," I don't thinks anyone has said > that. Merely that it's easier to calculate with it. > I will agree on that this far - if you are using base 10, and you are using more than a dozen items in counting. Base 8 and binary are taught in jr high in the US- although not as much as they were a couple decades back, where entire quarters of school math were done in base 8. > >>>sets of 8 is the most natural when using octal or counting when > >>>your thumbs are used as the next digit (why octal for the > >>>uneducated? count to eight twice using your fingers as the ones and > >>> use the thumbs as the next-place-holder eights, and you get two > >>>thumbs worth, i.e., 16 - you can count to sixteen on your hands > >>>without remembering in octal, while the evil enemy the french with > >>>their new-fangled metrics can only count to ten before they have to > >>> scratch a mark in the dirt to go higher) > >> > >>Primitive people don't use anything like that. They work off base 10 > >>for the most part as the numbers of commerce and trade and make > >>multiples of 10 by secondary gestures. Count all the fingers - that's > >>10, then count them again and tap the wrist - that's 20. Then count > >>them again and tap halfway up the forearm - that's 30, and so forth. > >>I've seen that in widely separated cultures. > >> > > seen it in any cultures not already influenced by western culture? > > You cannot have. > > <LOL> Right. You must have that ability to read minds - what's it > called - mental neuropathy. Yeah, that's it. > > I'm typing slowly here. Base 10 is the most commonly used numerication > system because it's more readily useful than any other one. > I do believe that was not an accepted statement, and you are not suppoerting your claim that it is, only ridiv=culking hte messenger and then restating it. Useful where? For what? By what specific measure do you make this claim > > And if you will note, I said that the change was to 8 by human design, done > > by those who felt they had the answer to ills by moving from the old 3-4 to > > a new 8 system. I know well firsthand of the politics of the move to change > > to metrics, and it was not for improved efficiency for the US. > > You're merely guessing. So you're saying that in the 15th century, > people knew about the 3-4 business and consciously decided to start > using 8 as a common factor? I'd like to see a source for that. I flat > out disbelieve it. What does counting on your fingers have to do with > liquid measure? > what does your comments about base 10 have to do with liquid measure? \ > >>>the original metric had (and some still do have) 100 degrees in a > >>>circle, 100 degrees between water boiling and freezing, > >> > >>I've never seen anything even remotely like this. > > > > And thus it must not exist, and so all information about it or its > > derivation is false? > > No, sludgewit. It means I've never seen anything like that. It means I > can't speak to it. > > > FYI, The "degrees" of 100 "degrees" in a circle are called gradians. All HP > > engineeering calculators that I have seen have it. > > > > FYI, Celsius and centigrade (and Kelvin) thermometers are calibrated by > > making 100 gradations between boiling water and an ice water solution (they > > are .01 degree apart. > > > > always linear because they measured expansion in two dimensions. > > > >>>100 parts > >>>to a time and geometry minute, > >> > >>Military minute. Time-study minute. But not common currency. > >> > > The use of 100 resisted because the ten was not a natural number and did not > > work. > > "Natural number." Right. So 12 eggs is a more "natural" number. Or 7 > days. Or 60 minutes. Or 6 bottles of beer. > > >> > 10 increments in everything. works > >> > >>>ok in theory, and quite well in many applications, but in geometry, > >>>in time, in most water-based applications such as steam > >>>calculations which were devised to be simple by using "specific" > >>>parameters, forces (several measures), pressures (there are > >>>probably six or seven metric measures that can drive the engineer > >>>nuts), and rapid mental calculation of small digital amounts, the > >>>British 3-4 and octal length-force-second system and the 60 > >>>multiple time, temperature, and geometry units beats the original > >>>metric length-meter-mass hands down. > >> > >>Sorry. No. If that were the case, all those engineers I worked with at > >>Westinghouse would still be using those units. The simple fact of the > >>matter is that functioning in 10s and multiples and divisibles of tens > >>is simpler for any sort of computation you want to consider. > try steam turbine calculations without a binary computer > > > computer - (all binary) > > Binary is easier for *machines* to use - a circuit is either open or > closed. For people living in the real world, decimal is easier. > > > and never even close to simpler for steam power calculations. > > Don't be silly. Watts is a perfectly fine defining value for > calculations of power. It's like saying there's a "natural" way to > calculate how much water a pump moves. We stick with horsepower or > joules or calories as definitions because of the sheer perversity of > humans who don't want to change a familiar unit. There are many such > units in currency all over the world. The convenient ones survive. The > other fall by the wayside, no matter what the committees say. > Your comments reagarding basic british measure vs metric show you have absolutely positively no idea about the basic steam calcualtions that formed the indutrial revolution. Watts are not the problem. Check out a steam table (the one for enthalpy etc, not the one at lunch). Seen the metric one? > > the europeans to this day can't even use the right measure for weight - they > > use the unit for mass as weight. > > <LOL> Jeez. Where they're interchangeable and so defined, like in > earth's gravity well, it's six of one; half a dozen of another. Um, > that's base 12. > So kg and newtons are as easily interchangeable, same then as feet for meters, for the average person? Or dynes. Or pascals or newtons per cc or newtons per m^2 or g per cc or kg per dc or dynes per cc. Yup, decimal metric looks a lot simpler than their british equivalent, psi, in pressure, at least. > >>These numbering systems are holdovers from earlier times and remain > >>conventions mostly because we're familiar with them. > > > > If ten is so simple, why were those unnatural systems like the sexagesimal > > of the baylonianian empire, the binary of the Russians, the septal of > > Univac, and 3-4 of Europe, the egyptian system, and all the other > > non-decimal systems, developed? Because they liked unnatural? One cultures > > natural is another cultures awkward. > > Not really, it's because that genius who would develop the concept of > zero hadn't come along yet. That lack was one of the major problems > with that Babylonian system. Ten is a simple system base as evidenced > by the legal, if not customary, adoption of the metric system by > virtually every country on earth. History, old fellow, history. > the old myth of the lack of zero as a concept - don't buy into that. chinese, mayans, the greeks had the concept of zero - it is in many of their mathematical proofs. The romans, whose empire was the largest ever known and thrived in trade, did not have a symbol for zero, because they didn't need it. If there was nothing on the line, then there was nothing. > There is no "natural." > > >>Getting people to > >>change is an interesting exercise. My grandparents were born in Italy > >>in the late 1800's. The spoke of both "kili" and "libri" when talking > >>about weight measures. "Gallone" was the standard liquid measure, > >>except they also said that "quatro litri fa un gallone." "Four liters > >>make a gallon." > > > > again a four from a native measure system > > Nah. It was to create a compromise between different standards. The > American gallon is four quarts; they're just fitting the familiar > ("litri") into the new, to them, system. Relative measures, close > enough for daily living. > > >>>All those odd measure - chains, barrels, tons, are standards for > >>>specific purpose that were used by both countries in international > >>>commerce are blamed on the british system. > >> > >>Every culture has had unique measures that suited the needs they > >>filled. No one blamed measures on anyone else, they merely used their > >>own. And still do except for commerce that crosses borders, and even > >>then many still do. You can still buy koku of rice in Japan. > >> > >>>As I understand, one of > >>>the french kings had all of France surveyed in great part to scrap > >>>the old and get the new measure in place > >> > >>That would be Napoleon. And he had all the houses in France uniquely > >>numbered. That's where the cosmetic company called "The house of 4711" > >>got its name. > >> > > no, it was well before napoleon. An early Louis. > > > >>>or so the story goes > >> > >>Um, sure. Soon to be a major motion picture. > > > > actually, it was in a documentary on maps. > > > >>Pastorio > > > > bottom line - all that you get to see is not all that occurs. > > FOITN. You're trying to make the world history of measurements what > happened in England. And you're trying to make your experience into a > universal. And you're trying to say that your definitions are the only > ones. > > Mirror, mirror on the wall.... > > Pastorio > > |
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"Ophelia" > wrote in message news 
> Ahh ok.. so we are using fluid weights. No, we're using a unit of VOLUME (the fluid ounce) which unfortunately shares its name with a unit of weight. Bob M. |
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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 17:38:29 GMT, "Ophelia" >
wrote: > >"Michael Odom" > wrote in message .. . >> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:41:16 GMT, "Ophelia" > >> wrote: >> >>> >>>"Ann Pacl" > wrote in message ... >>>> There are 8 ounces to 1 cup. Happy cooking. >>> >>>These cup measures confuse me. A cup of flour (for e.g) could not be the >>>same as a cup of rice or cornflakes surely? How do you work out the >>>different densities? >>> >> If the author of the recipe is any good, she/he will have allowed for >> the different densities of ingredients in the measurements in the >> first place. > >Yes indeed I understand that. What I refer to is the statement that there >are 8 ounces to 1 cup. It doesn't state WHAT is. There have been many >responses saying something similar. There is nothing about the density of >ingredients > Huh? A cup is comprised of eight ounces. Those are fluid ounces, a measurement of volume. Volume is not weight. There are, however, ounces that are measurements of weight. Twelve of them constitute a pound. A pound of nails and a pound of feathers will comprise different volumes as measured in fluid ounces, but both will weigh 16 ounces. modom Only superficial people don't judge by appearances. -- Oscar Wilde |
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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:56:51 -0600, Michael Odom >
wrote: >There are, however, >ounces that are measurements of weight. Twelve of them constitute a >pound. OOPS. Make that 16 oz. to the pound. modom Only superficial people don't judge by appearances. -- Oscar Wilde |
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