Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail
From: Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: value of pi and 22/7
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 23:19:41 -0600
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On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Gregory Ewing
<greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Ian Kelly wrote:
>>
>>  Remember, the cubit was based on the length of the
>> forearm, so it's not like it was a terribly precise measurement to
>> begin with;
>
>
> Let's not sell them short. Just because it was based on a forearm
> doesn't mean they didn't have a precise standard for it, any more
> than people who measure things in "feet" do it by plonking down
> their own foot.
>
> No doubt it wasn't as precise as what we have nowadays, but
> it was probably a lot better than human body part variations.

Sure, but I think you've missed my central point, which is not that
they wouldn't have made reasonably precise measurements in
construction, but only that the storytellers would have rounded things
off for their audience.

We still do the same thing today. A house appraisal will report its
footprint to the nearest square foot, but most people when talking
about it casually aren't going to say "my house is 1936 square feet".
More likely they'll just say "about 1900 square feet", since past the
first couple of digits nobody really cares.