Tony,

Regarding your question of October 17th about measurements in ancient history. I cannot assist as it is a subject I have never studied.

Obviously most of our measurements of today were invented by babylon & assyria.

6 x 60 degrees = 360 degrees

Later egypt truncated babylon measure for more convenient time measure.

6 x 4 hours = 24 hours

At the same time egypt made a simple but yet radical change to the babylon number system by stripping out the 6's, resulting in the number system below:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8 , 9, & 10
10 x 10 x 10 = 1000

In the above there are disadvantages for measurement, but advantages for computation. It's only the europeans who 200 yr. ago started spelling the word EGYPTIAN:

as F.R.E.N.C.H.

with their meatball Napoleon Emperor's Republic of Europe Decadent Weight & Measures scheme.

Returning to your query again, I cannot even advise you where to start. Do you begin with:

1000, or
1216, or
15000, or
18240, or
some other number

For example, if you started with 15000 in., is that 1 stadium, or 2 stadiums. That is, do you just count the length, or do you count going around the stadium once, and so make it 2 stadiums.

To find out the answers, you will have to do a lot of reading, work a lot of things out, and then test things out on the ground in the Rerenewed Socialist Presidency Republic of Iraq, and also in the Arabic Presidency Republic of Egypt. Even if you had the money, it would be tough for one man to do on his own.

The site below just contains what mankind has used every day for 7000 yr., not a list of man's experiments.

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

Dear xcole,

We in Europe, whether we are pro or anti metric are getting rather tired of the way in which you continue to peddle this bit of American c**p that you mention every time you post anything on this site.

Where are these very much obscure measurements from, anyways? I mean, 1 stadium, a "militia" mile?????? Just what is he on about?????? Perhaps a plane or train spotter in disguise, with the same, rather laborious attention paid to detail?

It would not be at all correct to describe the 'stadium'/'stade' as 'obscure'.

The Romans used it regularly and it was precisley one-eighth of their mile. It was almost certainly in use througout the Roman Empire.

In the original New Testament Greek, the word is 'stadion' - and you can find it used at five places in the NT:

Luke 24 v 13
John 6 v 9
John 11 v 18
Revelation 14 v 20
Revelation 21 v 16.

It is translated in the Authorised Version as 'furlong'.

Looking at the above verses, it seems that the 'stadium' was in very common usage to describe medium distances i.e. between one town/village and another.

By contrast, the NT has only one reference to 'mile' - Matthew 5 v 41 ("And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain")

J Doe, the stadium and the militia mile are hardly obscure.

Well, maybe not to a scholar of classics but to your average person in the street?

Well, I don't know really- I am hardly a scholar of classics and know them.

>It's only the europeans who 200 yr. ago started
>spelling the word EGYPTIAN:
>as F.R.E.N.C.H.

We should start a petition against internet access in mental institutes.

Regarding the "stadium" discussion:
Unless you can read aramaeic and ancient greek, every translation of the bible is questionable and biased by its translator. Believing every word of the bible in English (or any other contemporary language) is like argueing with Blair's wording taken from BBC China.

Ralf

Ha ha! I like the first part, of "we should start a petition against internet access in mental institutes".

It's only the europeans who 200 yr. ago started
>spelling the word EGYPTIAN:
>as F.R.E.N.C.H.


Oh, and where does this usual hatred of the French come from, then, just like the bizarre "Decadent Napoleon European thingamey" (sorry, I can't see the actual posting of Xcole at the moment).

He has this book that he (or some relaiton of his) put on the Web. The original book was published in New England and dated 1827, but has been updated since then (not very well I might add - they forgot to add any Latin American measures and with a Texan inthe WHite House, they should have known better). THis year (170 odd years later), the original author (or his namesake copywrited the book). Somehwere in the bowels of this book is a mention of the Decadent Napoleonic Measures.

What really happened was that when the Convention of the Metre was drawn up (1875 I think), they found that the metric system as originally concieved had fallen behind the times - they needed to include measures for work, energy etc (something that was not thoughof by the original authors of the metric system). Also, better techniquesd for measurements had been found so they started again, trying to keep as close to the original metric system as possible, but making amendments where needed.

There is a much better history of the metric system on the BIPM site than the one which I used. It can be viewed at http://www.bipm.fr/enus/3_SI/si-history.html

It will be noticed that this history does not used the terms "Decedant" and "Napoleonic", though if one compares this site to the ragbag of measurements that XCole promotes, one can understand what the author of XCole's booklet was getting at.

Isn't it just easier to use stuff that goes in 10s (ie metric?) it's much quicker and therefore more efficient than chains, furlongs, stadiums etc. Using the latter, in my experience, equates to a form of mental torture as it is ridiculously complicated. Why bother? And as for supporting fahrenheit, it's certainly not British, as most people know it's german so why cling on to it like it is part of our patriotic heritage or something?
However, those who do want to use imperial should be able to, providing they also show their wares in metric aswell. You cannot expect everyone to know what a grain of this or a chain of that is.
What I do think should stay is the pound sterling: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In other words, a prosperous society needs continuity and not change, and so taking possible risks to that prosperity (ie. the euro) is unnecessary.

"You cannot expect everyone to know what a grain of this or a chain of that is."

Hey get to the 20th century man, some measures have evolutionarily "dropped off".

You'll be measuring your height in decimetres next.

Hey - I agree with you about the Euro though, hmmm.

Finally - its 85F in Barbados right now and I will be there in a few weeks - so there!

JDOE wrote

<<
Oh, and where does this usual hatred of the French come from, then, just like the bizarre "Decadent Napoleon European thingamey" (sorry, I can't see the actual posting of Xcole at the moment).
>>

I went down to the local Public Library to look up the meaning of the word "decadent" in "The Oxford Disctionary" (not the "Concise" version nor the "Shorter" version but the full version - all 12 volumes or thereabouts of it). There are two meanings:

1) degenerate

2) Applies to the "decadent" period of French Art and Literature (as opposed to the "Romantic", "Classical", "Modernist" etc). This period was during the ninteenth century.

I think that the word "Decadent" applies to the latter when used to describe the Napoleonic system of measure - it had me fooled for some time and probably most other readers of this forum.

SteveH wrote

<<
Hey get to the 20th century man
>>

Maybe the metric system is the system for the 21st Century.

You need to get to the 20th century before you can move into the 21st century

A series of posts have been batting the "Decadent"
idea around.

It may be overly simplistic to merely look it
up in OxDict as Martin does. X does not always follow
the rules: with him or with
his 19th C sourcebook "decadent" could mean "that which has fallen out of use" or has evolutionarily
(nice SteveH word) DROPPED OFF

de + cadere

off + fall

in autumn the leaves of deciduous trees are decadent but neither of the two Oxford dictionary meanings which martin offers will apply to the leaves


[[SteveH: Hey get to the 20th century man, some measures have evolutionarily "dropped off".






martin

Martin: >...just like the bizarre "Decadent Napoleon
> European thingamey"....

I went down to the local Public Library to look up the meaning of the word "decadent" in "The Oxford Disctionary" (not the "Concise" version nor the "Shorter" version but the full version - all 12 volumes or thereabouts of it). There are two meanings:

1) degenerate

2) Applies to the "decadent" period of French Art and Literature (as opposed to the "Romantic", "Classical", "Modernist" etc). This period was during the ninteenth century.

MARTIN YOU MAY BE RIGHT and bravo for going down to pulbic lirbary but I am not yet convinced. When was the Decadent period in French Lit? and were the years not rather *Late* Nineteeth and very different from the naively Robust Napoleonic period? In Napoleon's time the art tended to be stupidly pseudoclassical and heroic. lots of muscular romans waving swords. I won't pretend to understand the delphic Xacole but can't see how Napoleon coincides with the decadent period in french lit.

Has anyone read Huysmann's "Au Rebours" an exquisite late 19th work of french decadence and extremely funny.

I can't find any clear definition of the Decadent Period of French Literature, but it does seem to relate to the latter part of the 19th Century and the "fin du siecle". I wonder if xcole's Napoleon is actually Napoleon III ? That might explain the odd conjunction of "Emperor" and "Republic".