Difference Architectural Feet/In's Regular Feet In's

[Align]

as a new sketchup user, if i don't know know any sort of real math, which template should i use for architectural work? right now im using the architectural grey background feet/inches template. is this the correct template to use?

[remus]

It really doesnt make a huge amount of difference, as long as your working in whatever units you usually work in.

When you get a bit more of a feel for sketchup you can also make your own template by setting up a file in a way you like (with your favourite styles, materials, scenes etc. already in the model), save it ten load it as a template by going preferenes->template->browse.

[Ecuadorian]

If you're working with survey information, be aware that U.S. survey data follows the old definition of "foot". The current definition of "foot" has been tied to the metric system for decades, and is exactly 0.3048 meters. The United States survey foot, on the other hand, is equivalent to 1200/3937 meters, or approximately 0.3048006 meters. The difference might look small, but when the point of origin is at the other side of the country, you might make horrible mistakes.

If you're not working with survey data, please take the blue pill and forget what I just said.

[Rich O Brien]

If you really want to confuse yourself even more you should see how the meter was decided.....read on....

"Some suggested defining the meter as the length of a pendulum having a half-period of one second; others suggested defining the meter as one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant (one fourth the circumference of the earth). In 1791 the French Academy of Sciences chose the meridian definition over the pendulum definition because the force of gravity varies slightly over the surface of the earth, affecting the period of the pendulum."

Seems sound enough.....but wait there's more....

"The 1889 definition of the meter was based upon the artifact international prototype of platinum-iridium, was replaced by the CGPM in 1960 using a definition based upon a wavelength of krypton-86 radiation. This definition was adopted in order to reduce the uncertainty with which the meter may be realized. In turn, to further reduce the uncertainty, in 1983 the CGPM replaced this latter definition by the following definition:

  **The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.**

So now you understand why inches and meters don't matter when using SketchUp, just have fun!!

[Ecuadorian]

This means that the current definition of "feet" is exactly 0.3048 times the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.

But yeah, it doesn't really matter what units you work in, as long as you set everything to meters before sending it to me.

[paulside]

Talking of Precision Measurement!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s.
The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and

CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else