The Rule for Rulers

This post is for those who think that distance is a complicated thing and want to learn all about distance. Specially if you are moving to strange countries where everything is measured with rules that are very different from what you are used to. Be specially attentive to fractions, they can ruin all measures you need to take.

The ruler

"Terminology

A ruler used to be called a rule, and rulers would be rules. Today, the more commonly found term is ruler. The dictionary defines both the term rule and ruler, so either can be used, and for this document I will only use the term ruler."

Those are cute. They come in pairs. But not practical when the work needs to be done by diferent systems, you can loose one of them.

"Metric Rulers"

Metric rulers are fairly easy to read - I always knew that. They deal with centimeters and millimeters only. You wont have to worry much about fractions.

The larger lines with numbers are centimeters, and the smallest lines are millimeters. Since millimeters are 1/10th of a centimeter, if you measure 7 marks after a centimeter, it is 1.7 centimeters long.

English Rulers

English rulers, are much more difficult to read. Mostly because they deal with fractions - yes, lots of fractions indeed!!! -, which are a bit more dificult to learn."

"Although you are probably familiar with rulers, yard sticks, tape rules, folding rules, and tape measures, you will also find rulers on many machines that you use such as saws, sewing machines, photocopiers, and computer scanners. Computer programs like Microsoft Word and Adobe PhotoShop have electronic rulers that you can turn on to help you with the exact placement of items. As you can tell, reading a ruler is a valuable skill that you will use almost every day both on and off the job. Measurement is just one reason to learn fractions. "

Rulers not only measure things with different systems, the difference between the systems give us a complete different reading about the same piece being measured. What can be 10 in one, in the other it will be 3.7#>"£"*@/. So, people take pleasure in complicate easy things, nothing will ever be unified. So the ruler bellow can be a good solution sometimes:

Well, in the end, this is my favourite, since my times in an Architecture office. You have all the systems in only one instrument, you can measure even in some system you don't know, and the best of all: you can easily prove that 10 is equal to 3.7#>"£"*@/ when they are together...