OK, “No kits use 1/384 scale” This was probably designed by someone who had a ruler rather than other models, otherwise I think they would’ve made it 1/350 so as to use already available details and accessories. The other items in their line are “round number” scales.
“Box scale” is a misnomer. It’s likely actually “mold scale”. Injection molding machines used standard size molds, the expensive steel tools that contain the sprues. There are limits to the size of part that can be made on a mold blank.
But surely someone has as asked them, or they’ve wondered themselves: “How big is this compared to the real thing?”
It’s the completely unabashed willingness to admit that one can’t manage an elementary school-level task that gets me. “Oh well, I just can’t do math!” is common statement. Funny, you don’t have folks cheerily going around stating “Oh well, I can’t read!”
@ Kurt Laughlin: FYI, the model in question is Heller’s Santa Maria. The stated scale is 1/75. I’ve compared 1/72 - 1/76 figures to the height of ladders, railings, doors, etc., and the model appears to be MUCH smaller than 1/75. Preiser made a set of crew figures of Chistopher Columbus, et al, and they look much closer - I believe they are 1/87 (HO scale). I wanted to calculate the actual scale of the ship according to historical dimensions. Unfortunately, no two references agree on the actual dimensions - just somewhere between 60 - 70 feet. A fool’s errand trying to establish the scale; but it certainly isn’t 1/75.
Trying to define the standard size of a soldier/sailor/tinker/spy is another fools errand.
Ship builders often used the smallest possible measurements,
the clearance from the battery deck to the deck beams above on the Vasa ship is somewhere by my shoulders, somewhere around 160 cm (5’5").
Scaling the Vasa ship after my height would lead totally wrong.
Yeah…like the deck railings on Heller’s “1/75” Pinta come knee-high to a 1/72 scale figure, and the life boat would be swamped with more than one occupant, and clearance from main deck to quarter deck is less than shoulder height! You could argue that average heights were shorter than they are today, but people weren’t midgets.
I am piecing thoughts together and maybe not using the correct pieces. The first plastic models were made in England and were 1/72nd scale. So was England using the imperial measurement at the time? If so the basis for model scales may well started in England.
Ah, so the Netherlands isn’t the only country in which : is taught as the division operator But if you’re writing in English, it indicates a ratio, which is related to, but not the same as, division. For our purposes, though, they’re basically interchangeable.
I think you mean either × 10 or dm
I would expect that too, but I’ve observed that there are some people who simply don’t wonder about that. I guess to them, the scale printed on the box is just an indicator that this kit will fit with the other kits they already own?
But maths is hard!
You mean they don’t now? It’s very common to have British people refer to things like, “A wall six feet high, ten metres long.” The older they are, the more they’ll use Imperial measurements, because they’ve basically been doing a semi-half-assed changeover since the 1970s. But my theory is that this is not a problem for people used to Imperial or American units, because you’ve got so many different units already that adding a few more won’t cause confusion — whereas to people used to metric, having to work with units that aren’t neat multiples of what they already know causes much more confusion. For example, people here buy “40-inch” TVs without any real understanding of how big they are. Why? Because manufacturers of flatscreen TVs follow American practice, even though when these same manufacturers were making CRT TVs, they measured them in centimetres …
With the old 4:3 height-width ratio for TV screens knowing the diagonal was enough information.
Things have changed though …
Watching old movies on 16:9 screens gives you bonus black edges left and right
or distorted faces resembling squashed pumpkins. Some of the early wide screen TV sets
tried to autoadjust which was simply not enjoyable.
What is the difference between 3/4 and 0.75?
How do I measure 3/4 of a sack of potatoes? Multiply the weight by the ratio 3/4
or by the number I get when I divide 3 by 4.
One of the problems with understanding maths is that many kids are
taught that the = symbol means ‘becomes’ or ‘turns into’.
The = shall be read as ‘is equal’ or ‘is the same’, 2 x 2 = 4 doesn’t mean that 2 multiplied by 2 “becomes” 4 by some arcane magic, it shall be read as “is 4”.
Writing 3/4 is a way of writing 0.75 or, using plain text, writing “three quarters”.
Writing 30/40 is just being a pretentious a-hole even if the actual value is the same, if I were to teach math I might do it just to make the pupils (may God help them) think for a while and hopefully understand what it is all about.
Some “moves” when solving equations are easier to understand if the = is read as ‘is the same as’ instead of 'becomes". What is the rule for moving for instance a ‘-2’ from one side of the = and letting it become a ‘+2’ on the other side?.
Move the number and invert the sign
OR
add 2 to both sides?
One side gets ‘+2’ and the other has ‘-2’ and gets ‘+2’ which is equal to zero.
The ‘-2’ has magically disappeared and a ‘+2’ has magically appeared on the other side.
With a little practice most pupils will skip the adding and subtracting steps and go for the
end result (moving the number and inverting the sign) BUT the teacher who explains it as
a move-and-switch commits a grave error by providing a rule but not explaining the
justification for the rule. The move-and switch rule is easy to forget, remembering that
adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing must be applied to both sides of the = is easier to remember.
Depends on where you start. Multiply the measurement taken on the model to get to the size on the real object, divide the measurement on the real object to get the size on the model.
Building a model in 35:1 scale would be very impractical unless the real object is microscopic.
One is a simple fraction, the other is a decimal fraction. Not sure where you’re going with that, because neither of the two indicates a ratio.
A ratio indicates the proportion between two values that have the same dimension: if you have three times as many apples as pears, it’s a ratio of 3:1 apples-to-pears.
If you say your model is “1:35” scale, what you’re saying is that the ratio of (say) the length of the model to the length of the real thing, is 1 to 35 — that is, that the real thing is 35 times longer than the model.
Conversely, if you say your model is “1/35” scale, then you’re saying the model is one-thirtyfifth the size of the real thing — that is, that you get to the model’s size by multiplying the real thing’s size by the fraction ¹∕₃₅.
These two amount to the same thing in practice, but they’re semantically different.
You’re doing it exactly right — assuming you’re dividing the real-world dimensions by 35 to get to the size you need for your model.
Nope, it’s because they don’t think in inches, and so have no mental image of how big one is — let alone forty of them. But tell them their TV is about a metre diagonally, and they’ll get a fairly good idea of its size.
3:4 is two numbers separated by the division operator
3:4 can also be a fraction
3/4 is a fraction
0.75 is a decimal fraction
Calculating 3:4 results in the decimal value 0.75 which is a fraction but 3:4 can also be a ratio, if the surrounding text indicates this, so 0.75 should therefore also be possible to interpret as a ratio.
If I want to be specific when describing a ratio, such as the number of mathematicians to the number of people, I would write that the ratio is N to M (can’t be bothered to find the numbers).
If I know the ratio I could calculate the number of mathematicians by multiplying the number of people by the number given by N/M or N:M, alternatively divide by M/N or M:N.
The alphanumerical representations 3:4, 0.75, 3/4 or any other way of typing a division do not in and of themselves define anything as being a ratio. We can write that “the ratio is 3/4, 0.75 or 3:4” and make ourselves understood. The text “N to M” defines a ratio as long as N and M are numbers, the distance from “Amsterdam to Rotterdam” is obviously not a ratio.
But if you’re writing in English, it indicates a ratio, which is related to, but not the same as, division. For our purposes, though, they’re basically interchangeable.
