[Bell Historians] Fractions

[La Greenall]

I hope you like your coffee forthy Rod!

I agree, 2 13/64" is much more direct and also looks a lot more elegant
than 2.203125"! (Thanks, Windows Calculator!) Anyway, what good old tape
measure could accurately measure all those tiny numbers, eh? And if you
use one of those laser thingies, who's to say there wasn't a bit of
grime or dust in the way, affecting the reading?

Stating a measurement of 2 13/64" also allows for a reasonable margin of
flexibility anyway, say up to a quarter of a sixty-fourth of an inch
either way, but stating 2.203125" as a measurement automatically demands
an inherent accuracy of at least six decimal places - or, speaking in
fractions, plus or minus 1/1,000,000, or the figure will change up or
down by one least-significant digit, resulting in what people nowadays
think of as an error. Eek! Next thing, we'll be weighing bells in grams
and producing coffins that fit like lycra shellsuits!

Apologies for throwing in my 0.41666666666666667 new pence worth!

Lawrence.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com 
> [mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of 
> Bickerton, Roderic K (SELEX) (UK)
> Sent: 24 May 2006 07:57
> To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Bell Historians] Fractions
> 
> 
>  Plane text with a forward slash works and has been used for a lot
> longer than I have been. The whole numbers just being spaced away.
> Example 2 13/64" for two and thirteen sixty froths of an inch. 
> The important thing is to keep it in plane text so HTML 
> conversion dose not screw it up.

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