Matzos and mathematical musings
Mar. 18th, 2005 07:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieIt's getting to be that time of year: I'm starting to see the boxes of matzos on the end caps of aisles in grocery stores, instead of just in the specialty foods section. There's nothing like a thin matzo with a bit of peanut butter...yum. The only trick is to keep the matzo from falling apart when you bite into it. I'm afraid I don't eat them often enough to have mastered whatever trick or knack is necessary for it. Oh well, it's still very tasty, if unnecessarily messy.
During one of my walks this week, I got to musing on mathematical aptitude and general mathematical literacy in society. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if the old British monetary system inadvertently increased the general mathematical literacy of the society using such a complicated scheme. For those of you who aren't familiar with the old system, go here for a nice rundown, but basically there were 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound - not to mention all kinds of other special monetary units, like farthings and guineas. It was notated pounds, shillings, and pence, or £. s. d. (and doesn't that notation make you wonder about the popularization of the term "LSD"? Yes, I know it's an abbreviation of the German Lysergsäure-diäthylamid, or lysergic acid diethylamide for us English speakers, but still...). I wondered if the common practice of having to convert from twelves to twenties to the standard tens might not have provided some extra mental mathematical exercise, much like the American stubborn adherence to the Imperial measurement system of ounces, pounds, feet, and inches leaves me with a rather greater facility for manipulating sixteenths and twelfths to tens than I do for, say, eights or thirteens. Not that this accidental benefit is a good reason for not going metric, of course, but in the spirit of making lemonade from lemons, it was an interesting thought, at least to me.
During one of my walks this week, I got to musing on mathematical aptitude and general mathematical literacy in society. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if the old British monetary system inadvertently increased the general mathematical literacy of the society using such a complicated scheme. For those of you who aren't familiar with the old system, go here for a nice rundown, but basically there were 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound - not to mention all kinds of other special monetary units, like farthings and guineas. It was notated pounds, shillings, and pence, or £. s. d. (and doesn't that notation make you wonder about the popularization of the term "LSD"? Yes, I know it's an abbreviation of the German Lysergsäure-diäthylamid, or lysergic acid diethylamide for us English speakers, but still...). I wondered if the common practice of having to convert from twelves to twenties to the standard tens might not have provided some extra mental mathematical exercise, much like the American stubborn adherence to the Imperial measurement system of ounces, pounds, feet, and inches leaves me with a rather greater facility for manipulating sixteenths and twelfths to tens than I do for, say, eights or thirteens. Not that this accidental benefit is a good reason for not going metric, of course, but in the spirit of making lemonade from lemons, it was an interesting thought, at least to me.
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Just a note
Date: 2005-03-19 10:00 pm (UTC)That's very odd
Date: 2005-03-20 07:28 pm (UTC)Re: That's very odd
Date: 2005-03-20 08:51 pm (UTC)Totally mystified
Date: 2005-03-21 02:21 am (UTC)