Since collectively, we seem to know just about everything, I thought I would run this past you all, especially you unit and measurement gurus.
We all know that despite the way the metric system people malign our wonderful Imperial/US system for not having a "system" to it, they're really wrong. Just like the metric system is based on powers of 10, our system is based on powers of 2
* -- we just don't ofeten realize it because many of the units are not in common use today.
So, when reviewing liquid measures, here's what I've got: (where each row is twice the previous, ex: quart = pint*2 )
fluid ounce
?
update: "jack"gill
cup
pint
quart
?
update: "pottle"gallon
So to make the jump from fluid oz. to gills you have to multiply by four; similarly, to go from quarts to gallons the factor is four. So there must be some units which are lost to history (though I'm sure most would argue that nobody calls a half-cup a gill anymore either).
Does anyone have any idea what the missing units are (the half gill/quarter cup and the half-gallon) ???* for purposes of my thesis we will ignore things like firkins and hogsheads