Scale (ratio)

The scale ratio of a model represents the proportional ratio of a linear dimension of the model to the same feature of the original.

Description

Scale is a measure of proportion.

Scale is a critical factor in many areas of technology, art, and life.

Software development

See Software development and scale.

Examples

Examples include a 3-dimensional scale model of a building or the scale drawings of the elevations or plans of a building.

In such cases the scale is dimensionless and exact throughout the model or drawing.

The scale can be expressed in four ways: in words (a lexical scale), as a ratio, as a fraction and as a graphical (bar) scale. Thus on an architect's drawing one might read 'one centimetre to one metre' or 1:100 or 1/100 and a bar scale would also normally appear on the drawing.

Galileo wrote (in Two New Sciences):

Who does not know that a horse falling from a height of three or four cubits will break his bones, while a dog falling from the same height or a cat from a height of eight or ten cubits will suffer no injury? Equally harmless would be the fall of a grasshopper from a tower or the fall of an ant from the distance of the moon. Do not children fall with impunity from heights which would cost their elders a broken leg or perhaps a fractured skull? And just as smaller animals are proportionately stronger and more robust than the larger, so also smaller plants are able to stand up better than larger.

Source

See also

• Exponentiation
• Fractal
• Golden ratio
• Knudsen number
• Mathematics
• Measurement
• Model
• Power of two
• Proportionality (mathematics)
• Ratio
• Scalability
• Scaling (geometry)

External links

• Scale (ratio) @ Wikipedia