Mick F wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 3:57pm
I was in Plymouth city centre yesterday, and walked through the market.
There was a poster up by one stall, displaying a January 1964 front page of the Daily Express.
My eye was drawn to an article regarding the 11plus.
I took a photo, and here enclosed is the subject wot amused me, and a subject wot got me thinking about children and younger adults not using arithmetic like wot we used to.
Screen Shot 2022-12-08 at 10.44.49.png
I remember two methods of this sum, and my favourite method was to reduce the pounds shillings and pence to pence.
Do the arithmetic, and then put it back together into pounds shillings and pence.
Tell people today, and they wouldn't believe a time before decimalisation and (God forbid) calculators.
Presumably the other method was to multiply (or divide) each part individually and then convert the shillings and pence back into pounds and shillings (and left-over pence).
So £12 11s 8d x 17 =
£204 187s 136d
which would be, if I've got the relationship between units correct
£213 18s 4d
Mike Sales wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 7:51pm
Split a pound into three parts.
6/8d.
or 5 1/3 oz.
Luck ....
Ounces are the best one. Not only "British or American?" but "Weight or volume?" In practice, US fluid ounces are the ones I come across most commonly, but it's rarely specified which sort are referred to.
Mick F wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 3:57pm
I was in Plymouth city centre yesterday, and walked through the market.
There was a poster up by one stall, displaying a January 1964 front page of the Daily Express.
My eye was drawn to an article regarding the 11plus.
I took a photo, and here enclosed is the subject wot amused me, and a subject wot got me thinking about children and younger adults not using arithmetic like wot we used to.
Screen Shot 2022-12-08 at 10.44.49.png
I remember two methods of this sum, and my favourite method was to reduce the pounds shillings and pence to pence.
Do the arithmetic, and then put it back together into pounds shillings and pence.
Tell people today, and they wouldn't believe a time before decimalisation and (God forbid) calculators.
Presumably the other method was to multiply (or divide) each part individually and then convert the shillings and pence back into pounds and shillings (and left-over pence).
So £12 11s 8d x 17 =
£204 187s 136d
which would be, if I've got the relationship between units correct
£213 18s 4d
Yes to that method.
With division you may have to borrow between columns.
Of course people doing that may have been more familiar with long multiplication and long division than is now the case.
Mike Sales wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 7:51pm
Split a pound into three parts.
6/8d.
or 5 1/3 oz.
Luck ....
Ounces are the best one. Not only "British or American?" but "Weight or volume?" In practice, US fluid ounces are the ones I come across most commonly, but it's rarely specified which sort are referred to.
Jdsk wrote: 27 Jun 2023, 2:31pm
Ounces are the best one. Not only "British or American?" but "Weight or volume?" In practice, US fluid ounces are the ones I come across most commonly, but it's rarely specified which sort are referred to.
Or mass!
; - )
Jonathan
[/quote]
Yep, every sunday at 10 am when weighty topics are delivered in the sermon.
Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X2, Raleigh 20 stowaway X2, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840, Giant Bowery, Apollo transition.
US ounces are the same as Imperial ones.
US fluid ounce is 16 to the pint. We in UK have 20 of them to the pint.
These means that the gallon is smaller in US than UK but they are still both 8 of their pints.
Google tells me that a US floz is 29.5735ml and a UK floz is 28.4131, though working to that level of precision you'd surely be better off using smaller units. 1 US floz is 1.04084 UK floz. Near enough the same for domestic purposes but far enough apart to give noticeably different amounts when converting to ml.
Mick F wrote: 28 Jun 2023, 2:06pm
US ounces are the same as Imperial ones.
US fluid ounce is 16 to the pint. We in UK have 20 of them to the pint.
...
Bmblbzzz wrote: 28 Jun 2023, 2:30pm
Google tells me that a US floz is 29.5735ml and a UK floz is 28.4131, though working to that level of precision you'd surely be better off using smaller units. 1 US floz is 1.04084 UK floz. Near enough the same for domestic purposes but far enough apart to give noticeably different amounts when converting to ml.
Yes. The US fluid ounce is not the same as the Imperial fluid ounce. And there are two different volume systems in the USA: one for liquids and one for dry materials.
But US customary units and Imperial units are all secondary units which are based on metric systems. Many for more than a century.
Mick F wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 7:44pm
Split two bob between five?
Easy!
24d divided by five is 4d each with 4d kept over for later.
And 10p between 4 people is 2p each with 2p left over for later. What's the difference other than no need to convert from one currency unit to another to do the maths. One less step seems more efficient to me.
Oldies, if you take 3 calculations and I take 2 who is being more efficient assuming each calculation takes the same amount of time?
If you need to convert calculations into another unit first.....
This thread seems to be under the illusion that maths was harder in the olden days. I think the teaching was possibly not as good and you don't learn things in the old, learning by rote method. Ever tried primary school maths lately? Some things our son got taught recently at got taught in high school and I went to a very good grammar school too!
Mick F wrote: 29 Jun 2023, 10:44am
My father could add up £ s d in long columns in his head. No conversions, just addition and carrying.
Mind you, he was an accomplished classical pianist and church organist. On heck of a brain.
It might be easier to do mental arithmetic when the numbers are grouped in some way, such as in several hierarchical units, than when they are kept as long unpartitioned strings.
