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Screen inches
Screen inches
The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British Imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to 1/36 yard or 1/12 of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth"), the word inch is also sometimes used to translate similar units in other measurement systems, usually understood as deriving from the width of the human thumb.
Standards for the exact length of an inch have varied in the past, but since the adoption of the international yard during the 1950s and 1960s the inch has been based on the metric system and defined as exactly 25.4 mm.
Take your computer and open an image that occupies the entire screen.
You could also do this with a classroom computer screen, a mobile phone, a tablet, or a TV.
Measure the length, width, and diagonal of the image that fills the screen.
Check that the Pythagorean theorem is satisfied, that is:
length² + width² = diagonal²
Convert the three measurements to inches.
When we talk about the number of inches of a screen, which of the three measurements are we referring to? (length, width, or diagonal)
Aspect ratio
Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions.
For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangle is oriented as a "landscape".
The aspect ratio is most often expressed as two integer numbers separated by a colon (x:y), less commonly as a simple or decimal fraction. The values x and y do not represent actual widths and heights but, rather, the proportion between width and height.
As an example, 8:5, 16:10, 1.6:1, 8⁄5 and 1.6 are all ways of representing the same aspect ratio.
Divide the width by the height of the screen you are analyzing. The result is the aspect ratio.
Which of the following formats is closest to your computer screen?
5:4
4:3
15:10
16:10
16:9
37:20 (this one is used for cinema screens)
other (which one?)
Let's practise it
Let's practise it
Draw a 5" screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio.
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