View source for Scale (ratio)

The '''scale ratio''' of a [[model]] represents the [[Proportionality (mathematics)|proportional ratio]] of a linear dimension of the model to the same feature of the original.

== Description == 

Scale is a measure of [[Proportionality (mathematics)|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''):
<blockquote>
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.

[http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/tns_draft/tns_001to061.html Source]
</blockquote>

== See also ==

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

== External links == 

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_(ratio) Scale (ratio)] @ Wikipedia

[[Category:Design]]
[[Category:Mathematics]]
[[Category:Scale]]
[[Category:Visual arts]]