Thursday, March 12, 2009

TV Aspect Ratio

TV and monitors have always come in screen size measured by inches: 17", 19", 21", 25" etc. Waita minute, elementary school students know that rectangles ought to be measured with both width AND height. So is 25" the width or height? Oh it is the diagonal that it is measured. Waita minute even diagonal does not determine exact width and height.
You can have a 25" x 1" TV and still be called 25".
Oh to ensure uniqueness, there is also the aspect ratio of 4:3 in older TV sets.

Ok, if you got a 25 inch TV, the height and width is 9 and 16. (Remember the 3-4-5 triangle and the Pythagorean theorem!
This theorem is profound... as it is the passage to irrational numbers... integer Pythagorean triplets are so neat..)

Newer wide screen TV have 16:9, compared to the older 4:3. Curiously 16=42 and 9 =32. I wonder if there is any relation. Ah there is, as explained in the wiki article.

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