Drink and Mathematics (only tangentially off-topic?)

[Ralph Katzenell]

Seasons greetings to all.
As a simple chemist of the test-tube persuasion, I am often flumoxed by anything beyond simple arithmetic. But as many of the list members seem to be University based - nay - even computer based, I thought the following excerpt from holiday reading might be of trivial interest:

The text is from "Seminumeral Algorithms" by Donald
E. Knuth (second edition), page 183:

"Although decimal notation was almost exclusively used for arithmetic
during that era [1650], other systems of weights and measures were
rarely if ever based on multiples of 10, and many business transactions
required a good deal of skill in adding quantities such as pounds,
shillings and pence. For centuries merchants had therefore learned to
compute sums and differences of quantities expressed in peculiar units
of currency, weights, and measures; and this was actually arithmetic in
a non-decimal number system. The common units of liquid measure in
England, dating from the 13th century or earlier, are particularly
noteworthy:

2 gills = 1 chopin
2 chopins = 1 pint
2 pints =  1 quart
2 quarts = pottle
2 pottles = 1 gallon
2 gallons = 1 peck
2 pecks = 1 demibushel
2 demibushels = 1 bushel or firkin
2 firkins = 1 kilderkin
2 kilderkins = 1 barrel
2 barrels = 1 hogshead
2 hogsheads = 1 pipe
2 pipes = 1 tun

Quantities of liquid expressed in gallons, pottles, quarts, pints,
etc. were essentially written in binary notation. Perhaps the true
inventors of binary arithmetic were English wine merchants!"

Uncle Ralph.

P.S. My best holiday reading is not really that geekinsh, its the stunning. gripping un-put-downable book  'Atilla the Hun'  - A Barbarian King and the Fall of Rome by John King. No! Really! Its absolutely great.

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