• Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    A0 is a square meter. Its sides are self similar, such that the ratio of long to short edge stays the same when you cut one in the middle, and thus create a new long and short edge.

    Each cut produces two sheets of the next Ax number, so A4 is four times halved compared to A0, or a sixteenth of a square meter.

    That property of being able to halve is achieved with a ratio of the square root of 2, so unfortunately the measurements in absolute numbers get pretty odd.

    • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Add in the fact that paper manufacturers round the numbers down, that “perfect” half size goes out the window immediately on the first division. And gets worse as the paper size gets smaller.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        I believe that’s basically the basis of the American size scheme. It’s just the size of the paper the paper maker would give you. Records seem to indicate it was based on the sizes of paper used for bookmaking, where a standard sheet would be folded once, twice, or three times to make book page inserts.

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Paper arbitrage. The globalists are stealing 51mm2 from you, wake up sheeple!

        Even A0 isn’t usually actually a square meter - 1189mm x 841mm = 999949mm2
        Though, the other common rounding (1190mm) results in an area of 1000790mm2, so we’re coming out ahead on that one.

        (this message brought to you by "why aren’t we using B" gang)