From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Wed Jul 7 09:53:31 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id JAA14911; Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:53:31 +1200 Received: from mailhost.auckland.ac.nz (mailhost.auckland.ac.nz [130.216.1.4]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id JAA14908 for ; Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:53:28 +1200 Received: from sci4 (lbr-122-42.lbrsc.auckland.ac.nz [130.216.122.42]) by mailhost.auckland.ac.nz (8.9.2/8.9.2/8.9.2-ua) with SMTP id JAA00212 for ; Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:36:25 +1200 (NZST) Message-Id: <199907062136.JAA00212@mailhost.auckland.ac.nz> Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:39:31 +0000 Subject: RE: How many pounds is a pound? X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) From: "Michael Parkinson" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: m.parkinson@auckland.ac.nz, dq@dq.sf.org.nz > Then silver pennies (and other coins?) weigh 1/15 of an ounce, rather > than the current 1/20th of an ounce. Currently they do weigh 1/20th of an ounce [presumably?? a "normal" ounce, i.e. Avoirdupois not Troy, i.e. an ounce of silver in DQ weighs as much as an ounce of anything else --see footnote] This means that a monetary pound (20 shillings) of Silver weighs 3/4 lb weight. All I want is to know how heavy money is. > However, 240sp is not a meaningful value to adventurers. Neither is a > pennyweight an encumbrance unit. > > I'd rather have 250sp or 500sp = 1 pound, as most adventurers work in > multiples of 1000. 1000sp = 4 pounds is a lot simpler than 1000sp = 4lb 2 > 2/3 oz. Couldn't agree more. We want our money to have a known weight which is easy to calculate. If we want something easy to measure and calculate, I'd suggest 200 pennies weigh a [normal] pound For comparison, 1 [normal] pound is the same as 160 5-cent coins (i.e. a NZ 5-cent coin is 1/10th of an ounce Avoir). ========FOOTNOTE============ Brief summary of historical fact (we we may ignore or adapt as it suits the campagn): valuable metals were weighed in a different system from other dry weights. 1 pound (Troy) = 12 oz (Troy) = 240 pennyweight 1 pound (Avoir) = 16 oz (Avoir) Unfortunately these pounds were NOT quite equal 1 pound (Troy) = 5760 grains = 13.165714 oz (Avoir) = 0.822857 Pound (Avoir) or 373.2418 grams Conversely 1 pound (Avoir) = 7000 grains = 291.66667 Pennywieght = 1.2152778 pounds (Troy) or 453.59243 grams ============= Scrupulously yours, Michael Michael Parkinson Mathematics & Statistics Subject Librarian Science Library, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, AUCKLAND, N.Z. Email: m.parkinson@auckland.ac.nz Phone: (09) 3737 599 x 5858 Fax: (09) 3082 304 -------------------------------- I say that as far as the truth of which mathematical proofs give us knowledge, it is the same truth that Divine wisdom recognises -- Galileo (tr.), "Diologo." -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers --