My mum and dad are/were both quite mathsy, and took every
opportunity to educate their children. If a pie/cake/tart/quiche/flan or some
other circular foodstuff was being served you were expected to express how much
you wanted in mathematical terms. When I was little it was in fractions, later
on in degrees. As an adolescent I was expected to describe how much pie I
wanted in terms of radians (1 radian is approximately 57.3 degrees). When I learned a
little bit more maths I was able to use a π term to make the radians much
easier (a modest slice of cake is π/6 radians).
When I talked about this with one of my colleagues he
wasn’t at all surprised, he just said "we used to use minutes in our
house". I took him to mean minutes-of-arc, which is clearly a ridiculous
measurement, there's no quiche in the world that could be cut into 21,600 equal
slices. He actually meant the eminently sensible minutes-of-clockface, they're
easy to estimate, you've probably got a suitable protractor around your wrist
right now, and they have a practical level of accuracy.
Since Easter my mum and I are using a new and
bewilderingly impractical unit of our own divising. One disciple is equal to
32.73 degrees. The unit derives from the traditional decoration of a simnel
cake which includes eleven marzipan blobs, each representing a disciple. There
were twelve disciples at the last supper, but Lando
Calrissian Judas Iscariot fell out of favour and isn't
immortalised in icing.
Richard "furlong-firkin-fortnight" B