Facts, Frameworks, and World Views

Since Omnium-Gatherum is, by definition, a miscellaneous gathering, I have decided to add to each posting—at least for a while--some interesting (to me) fact that you, too, might enjoy pondering. By itself the fact might be just trivia; you could get these kinds of things by consulting the Guinness Book of Records. But you probably wouldn’t get the comparisons that I will try to include to help with a point of reference for the fact.

Although I will not generally comment on the ‘fact of the day,’ I hope it may fascinate and inform you and stimulate you to make further comparisons of your own.

Now that brings me to the more important point of this posting. Having a point of reference, based on facts or their equivalent, placing your point of reference in a context, and then using it in a frame of reference in your development of a consistent and accurate world view are parts of what it means to be an educated person. An accurate world view helps you to make sense of the world and keeps you focused on what really matters. It helps you develop your values consistent with the virtues you have identified as themselves being consistent with life’s governing principles. Having this developed view means the difference between the unfocused life and one that has purpose and a plan for getting where you want to go.

We all must make constant evaluations and judgments based on inferences, deductions, facts, probabilities, and possibilities in nearly everything we do. If we don’t, and we just go with the flow, we might well end up in some destination or with something we really don’t want. If we don’t know where we are going, we will surely get there.

Fact: Anciently, the linear measurement ‘foot’ came from the measurement of that of an adult male. However to establish greater accuracy, it was reported that in 1598 the average ‘foot’ measurement of the first sixteen men who came out of some church, I think in Germany, became the standard. (According to Jacob Kobel, Geometrey von kunstlichen Feldtmessen, the Science Museum of London.)

Examples: A bowling lane is 60’ long, whereas the distance from the pitcher’s mound rubber is 60’6” to the home plate; the Acapulco, Mexico divers dive from 118' (as high as an 11 story building); Mt. Everest is 29,002’; and a mile is made up of 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards or 1.609 kilometers.