Back in the olden days, when I was truly young (age 17), one of the required courses for each freshman entering Missouri School of Mines & Metallurgy (MSM) was surveying. Right off the bat, I was confused. Our first exercise in that course was to determine our pace length - only, by pace, they did not mean two steps as did I. In that course a pace was the same as a step. Regardless, we walked a surveyed distance of 2400 feet four times, counting and recording our number of paces each transit. From those measurements I determined that my pace was 2.60 feet long and that my average number of paces/100 feet was 39. That was in September 1955.
A year later, Hunky Husband-to-be transferred into MSM. He did not get around to taking surveying, which had not been required at his previous engineering school, until his last semester at MSM. In September 1958, by which time we were nine months into our first marriage, HH determined his pace length by going through the same exercise. As is shown in his field book entry, his pace was 3.22 feet long, so he required but 31 paces to cover 100 feet. Is it any wonder we did not, in later years, walk or run together as exercise?
Being a Bemphite too ?
ReplyDeleteI thought I had commented yesterday on this, but apparently not.
ReplyDeleteII find it interesting that you thought of a pace the way that you did when you were starting out. I guess it makes sense as a pace could be different from a stride.
Stu: We did have a discussion on this in comments to your 2023 posting, "Wednesday, August 2: Being Bemphites" at http://www.savory.de/blog_aug_23.htm. My current posting, coming after I found and disposed of my old field book, led me to correct some of what my memory had led me to write.
ReplyDeleteBogie: The word "pace" is used differently by different people. For instance, Wikipedia includes: "A pace is a unit of length consisting either of one normal walking step, or of a double step, returning to the same foot."
I had been raised in a setting where a pace was a double step, possibly because I came from an agrarian background?
That is terrific that you still have the field book. I took Surveying my first year of Civil Engineering School at Chico State and we determined our pace length as well. I still remember that mine was 3.27 feet, but I do not have any record of it. I have used it many times over the years to estimate distances, but it is less common now with all the fancy laser distance meters or iPhone apps that can measure things. And I still sometimes use a measuring wheel for longer distances and used to have a calibrated distance meter in my work vehicle for distances in the thousands of feet.
ReplyDeleteIngineer66: Your message is that I may not walk with you? It is even worse, today. As I've aged, my pace has shortened. BTW: After photographing some of the pages in the field book, I disposed of the book. HH's field book is awaiting pickup by my re-cycling agent, Dudette. It's possible that she kept my field book but I think that highly unlikely.
ReplyDeleteI have a 50-foot steel tape - which I don't have to re-learn how to operate each time I need to use it. I'll leave the fancy stuff to you youngsters - lol. I must say that it upset me to realize that my current vehicle does not give me anything finer than a mile.