User talk:Psm

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[edit] Furlong history

Hi Peter, I would have emailed this to you, but you don't have an email address registered, so I'm using this way to get in touch with you. Looking at the history of the Furlong article it appears that you contributed the statement about the furlong being standardized around 1300. I'm researching the history of this unit and I was wondering where you found this information. You can respond here as I will watch this page, or if you like you can email me since I do have an email address registered. Thanks! Canon 00:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Canon, apologies for delay in responding. The British Crown standardized all measurements around 1300, so there are lots of citations for that, for example Britanica. So it really depends on how in-depth you want to go, e.g. if you're looking to read more about what exactly happened. ["The standardization of such linear units as the yard, foot, and inch—begun by government enactment sometime between 1266 and 1303—recognized the traditional sizes of rods, furlongs, and acres as fixed and therefore simply redefined them in terms of the newly standardized units.", Britannica] --Psm 16:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I'm particularly interested in why the furlong was set at 660 feet. The use of 60 as a factor is understandable since it is easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10. This is presumably why the Babylonians used it as a base for their number system. The curious thing is the factor of 11. Where does that come from? One finds the explanation that the furlong is the distance of a "long furrow" but this assumes that there is something standard about horses, plows, and dirt, which I find implausible. More intriguing is the connection of furlong with horse racing and the construction of horse racing tracks. Perhaps the unit was useful in constructing tracks of the same length but of different geometries. Do you know anything about this, or know of sources where one might look? Thanks again. Canon 16:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Well it was a while back I researched this, so if you want a definite set of references you'll have to bug me some more and I'll try to put in the time. I try to summarize it in the entry on furlong, but perhaps I need to do a better job of it. Basically, the rod (also perch or pole) was a key to surface definitions, whereas mile was used for distance. The accuracy of surface measures was more important, since that was used in contracts (e.g. rent). So when recurring efforts were made by central governments to reconcile the different commercial/legal/cultural traditions, there was the inevitable conflict derived from the common notion of "one foot" being used in surface vs distance contexts. In the case of the mile, the rod was defined as 16 1/2 feet and the furlong as 40 rods, thus 660 feet. That's how 11 comes into the picture. For historical reasons that I haven't been able to discern, the furlong was confused with the Greek stade, which the Romans would consider being 625 feet (one eight of a mile). Thus there was a popular notion that there were eight furlongs to the mile. But for that to reconcile with the (legally significant) definition of an acre, something had to give - and the mile was the easiest one to change.

Now, I suspect that a key driver was the Protestant movement of the 16th centry, spurring a translation of the Latin texts into the vernacular. This dated back to John Wycliffe's translation in the 14th century. Consider for example Luke 24:13 "And lo! tweyne of hem wenten in that dai in to a castel, that was fro Jerusalem the space of sixti furlongis, bi name Emaws." (yeah, i've actually downloaded the full text). Note in particular that the vernacular translations were becoming official (e.g. the Bishops' Bible) during the reign of Elizabeth, same reign that statuted the mile. So my personal theory is that it's all originally WyCliffe's fault! But Wiki isn't the place for soapboxing or original research so I've left that out of any contributions I've made to measurements. --Psm 21:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christmas Controversy

I don't think that was my edit. My two edits were a couple of spelling/grammar changes. Looks like the change you're referring was made by Sarcha 45. Vgranucci 02:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)