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Topic: packaging (Read 4436 times) |
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Benny
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Why do hot dogs come 10 to a pack while buns come in either eight- or twelve-packs ?
Is there a mathematical explanation?
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Michael Dagg
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Re: packaging
« Reply #1 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 2:18pm » |
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I don't know the real answer. But it would be ironic that:
I have a relative who is a farmer owning hogs and over the
years I have heard him discuss various aspects of their worth
and feeding measurements in multiples of 10.
So maybe that hog dog package is the the piggly minimum of
10*1 while beef, chicken and possum hot dogs don't contribute
to bun count.
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Michael Dagg
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towr
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Re: packaging
« Reply #2 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 2:27pm » |
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I don't think there's much of a reason behind it.
If they had wanted people to mismatch the amounts so you continually need to buy more of one and then the other, then they'd have done better to pick two coprime numbers.
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Michael Dagg
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Re: packaging
« Reply #3 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 2:33pm » |
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Clearly and perhaps for the same kind of reasons why bakers think
in terms of dozens.
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Michael Dagg
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Icarus
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Re: packaging
« Reply #4 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 6:53pm » |
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It's an old joke, but it isn't particularly true. I see hot dogs in packages of 8, 10, 12. I see buns in packages of 6, 8, 10, depending on the brand.
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Benny
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Re: packaging
« Reply #5 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 7:37pm » |
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I was told that the standard-issue hot dog comes ten to the pound. Jumbo hot dogs come eight to the pound. So, if you've got 10,000 pounds of hot dogs, therefore, you know you've got 10,000 packages.
It is not clear why bakers don't like tens. They prefer dozens, or more generally, multiples of three and four, six, eight, and twelve.
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JiNbOtAk
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Re: packaging
« Reply #6 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 9:43pm » |
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on Feb 20th, 2008, 7:37pm, BenVitale wrote:| It is not clear why bakers don't like tens. They prefer dozens, or more generally, multiples of three and four, six, eight, and twelve. |
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And I thought a baker's dozen is a prime.
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mikedagr8
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Re: packaging
« Reply #7 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 10:46pm » |
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on Feb 20th, 2008, 9:43pm, JiNbOtAk wrote:
And I thought a baker's dozen is a prime. |
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Not where I work it isn't. There a baker's dozen is just a common multiple or divisor. If it were a prime it would be a lot more complex.
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towr
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Re: packaging
« Reply #8 on: Feb 20th, 2008, 11:39pm » |
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on Feb 20th, 2008, 10:46pm, mikedagr8 wrote:| Not where I work it isn't. There a baker's dozen is just a common multiple or divisor. If it were a prime it would be a lot more complex. |
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It may or may not actually be used by bakers, but it's a well-known idiom.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=baker%27s%20dozen
Quote:Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
baker's dozen
–noun
a group of 13; a dozen plus one: from the former practice among bakers and other tradespeople of giving 13 items to the dozen as a safeguard against penalties for short weights and measures.
[Origin: 1590–1600] |
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| « Last Edit: Feb 20th, 2008, 11:39pm by towr » |
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JiNbOtAk
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Re: packaging
« Reply #9 on: Feb 21st, 2008, 3:39am » |
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on Feb 20th, 2008, 10:46pm, mikedagr8 wrote:| Not where I work it isn't. |
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on Feb 20th, 2008, 11:39pm, towr wrote:| It may or may not actually be used by bakers, but it's a well-known idiom. |
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Maybe it's not so well-known idiom in Australia.
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mikedagr8
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Re: packaging
« Reply #10 on: Feb 21st, 2008, 3:45am » |
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on Feb 21st, 2008, 3:39am, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Maybe it's not so well-known idiom in Australia. |
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It is, just not a practical one. It's probably more accurate for uses like confectionary. With bread it's a lot harder to make the weight spot on.
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Benny
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Re: packaging
« Reply #11 on: Feb 21st, 2008, 1:04pm » |
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So it seems practical because they have been using it for such a long time, perhaps centuries. Perhaps even before the decimal system was adopted.
Using tens make more sense to me.
It is still puzzling why bakers and other tradesmen are still using dozens.
Consider that in 1202, Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa - better known as Fibonacci - explained the decimal system to his European colleagues. English mathematician John Halifax would try to promote the decimal system to his countrymen in 1253. But it was only in the 16th Century that Simon Stevin, a quartermaster in the Dutch Army, presented the Western world a user-friendly way to convert to decimal fractions in his book "The Tenth" published in 1585. In 1670, Gabriel Mouton, a theologian and mathematician from Lyon, France proposed the general use of the decimal system and suggested a standard linear measurement based on the length of the arc of one minute of longitude on the Earth's surface and divided decimally (by ten).
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towr
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Re: packaging
« Reply #12 on: Feb 21st, 2008, 1:27pm » |
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on Feb 21st, 2008, 1:04pm, BenVitale wrote:So it seems practical because they have been using it for such a long time, perhaps centuries. Perhaps even before the decimal system was adopted.
Using tens make more sense to me.
[quote]It is still puzzling why bakers and other tradesmen are still using dozens. |
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Why is it puzzling? You can divide 12 by 2,3,4 and 6; ten can be divided by just 2,5.
Same reason why it's more useful to have 360 degrees in a circle than 100 or 1000 (actually, 120 would perhaps have been a better choice); and why 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds is not such a bad choice.
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Icarus
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Re: packaging
« Reply #13 on: Feb 21st, 2008, 6:18pm » |
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Indeed. The Sumerians (and probably their predecessors) chose their base 60 counting system because it was very handy for making common divisions. Although 60 is somewhat unwieldy, 12 provides most of the advantage at a more manageable size. For this reason, dozens have had great staying power, and likely will continue to endure.
A "baker's dozen", or 13, arises from a practice of bakers in the past of providing an extra roll or similar item gratis to improve customer relations. Alas, the practice seems to be mostly extinct.
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Random Lack of Squiggily Lines
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Everything before 7/1/2008 is now irrelevant.
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Re: packaging
« Reply #14 on: Feb 22nd, 2008, 4:19pm » |
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didnt the ripping friends pay a visit to the makers, and after a "Meeting" they dicided on 10?
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You can only believe i what you can prove, and since you have nothing proven to cmpare to, you can believe in nothing.
I have ~50 posts to hack a "R" into a "D". Which one?
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