Re:Why A4? – The Mathematical Beauty of Paper Size
by thechao on Monday September 05, 2022 @10:18AM
(#32724583)
It's 1795, and you're a farmer asked to build a ruler based on divide-by-10, or divide-by-2. Anyone with a compass can do the latter; the former is nearly impossible.
Re:Why A4? – The Mathematical Beauty of Paper Size
by mattkrause on Monday September 05, 2022 @12:27PM
(#32726126)
Not the number, but the "thing" itself.
It's a snap to fold a piece of paper in half, thirds[0], quarters, sixths, eighths, (etc), but I'm not aware of a trick that lets you divide a sheet into tenths.
[0] Higher powers of three seem tricky too.
Really? I struggle to see how dividing any number by two is easier than dividing it by ten, but would like to be enlightened. Divide by ten I just need to mentally move the decimal point, dividing numbers such as 35 or 123 by two requires a lot more mental arithmetic.