Saxon Inches

[David Whiteley]

I don't see Saxon Inches in the unit-strn table!  Apparently many old European settlements had their own definition of a Yard, to be found on the Town Hall wall as two bronze pins.  Our friend Paul was a Machinist in Germany after the War and given the job of rebuilding a weaving shuttle.  That's how old the loom was!

[The Beez]

Line 10 of ydc.4th:

\   All non-SI/metric units are US customary units.

So, ask yourself: are Saxon inches US customary units?

If you are unable to answer that question yourself, try ChatGPT. :)

Hans Bezemer

[The Beez]

Okay, let me do it for you:

No. Saxon inches are not part of the U.S. customary system.

The Saxon inch (German: sächsischer Zoll) was a historical unit of length used in parts of what is now Germany, particularly Saxony, before metrication. Like many pre-metric European units, its exact length varied over time and by locality.

By contrast:

• The U.S. customary inch is defined as exactly 25.4 mm.
• It is derived from the English Imperial tradition and has been internationally standardized since 1959.

Many historical "inches" existed in Europe (French, Prussian, Saxon, Viennese, etc.), and they were generally not the same length as the modern inch. For example, a Saxon inch was typically around 23.6 mm, though the precise value depended on the period and the specific local standard.

You know. It is free software. You can change it yourself. Since it's a well design piece of software, adding it means just changing some tables. FYI, the exact value is 0.023599167 meters.

Hans Bezemer

[The Beez]

Did you know that before the standardization of 1959 a US inch was 1/20,000 of a mm (or 0.00000005m) larger than after?

Interesting factoid!

HB

[The Beez]

Another interesting factoid: The US survey foot and inch survived until December 31, 2022.  The tiny discrepancy between both standards equals two parts per million, which means a US survey inch is "'roughly" 50.8 nanometers longer than an international inch.

HB