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Old November 29th 07, 08:49 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Tom Anderson Tom Anderson is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Oct 2003
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Default [OT] Aspect ratio of railway tickets

Right,

Fanshafting, dialling codes, and now geometry. Melvyn Bragg is currently
talking to me about the Golden Ratio [1]:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...nourtime.shtml

One of his contributors has cited railway tickets as an everyday object
which is sized according to the Golden Ratio. That ratio is 1:1.618ish;
some quick measurements of tickets give me a ratio of ~1.58, which is
close but not the same. Does anyone have exact numbers from a
specification?

Oh, hang on, it's something called ISO 7810:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_7810

Which has a side ratio of 1.5857725083364209ish. Right, that's that
sorted. Disregard this.

Where did that size come from? It's not an A-series size.

tom

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

--
The Gospel is enlightened in interesting ways by reading Beowulf and The
Hobbit while listening to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief. To kill a dragon
(i.e. Serpent, Smaug, Wolf at the Door) you need 12 (disciples/dwarves)
plus one thief (burglar, Hail to the Thief/King/thief in the night),
making Christ/Bilbo the 13th Thief. -- Remy Wilkins