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A comment on The Argument of Twelves and the Metric System.

Re:The Argument of Twelves and the Metric System by DiogenesKynikos on Sunday September 01, 2019 @04:13AM (#20851111)
One place where the metric/American mixup is a regular pain is paper sizes. American scientific journals are generally published on Letter paper, while all other scientific journals are generally published on A4 paper. The difference in aspect ratio is just enough to cause the bottoms or sides of pages to be cut off if you don't pay attention.

One nice thing about the international paper standard is its subdivision property: if you fold a piece of paper in half (along the correct axis), it retains its aspect ratio. That's pretty useful for printing pages 2-up, and for reducing paper waste. It's a similar argument to the "argument of twelves," but it goes in the opposite direction: the metric standard is favored.

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Re:The Argument of Twelves and the Metric System by masklinn on Sunday September 01, 2019 @05:10AM (#20851279)
TBF you've got to be slightly obsessed to see the metrication in A-series: most people will interact with A3 and A4 papers which are respectively 420x297mm and 297x210mm, if you go up you end up with A0's 1189x841mm which doesn't look very metric either. You've got to realise that it's 1 sqm in a sqrt(2) ratio to see the metrication (the aspect ratio being chosen so it stays constant when you halve the page through its larger edge).

The B series actually looks "more metric" at first glance: B0 is 1414x1000mm.

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