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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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Why does A4 have an odd number of millimeters? Why not 290, flat?
A0 is a square meter. Its sides are self similar, such that the ratio of long to short edge stays the same when you cut one in the middle, and thus create a new long and short edge.
Each cut produces two sheets of the next Ax number, so A4 is four times halved compared to A0, or a sixteenth of a square meter.
That property of being able to halve is achieved with a ratio of the square root of 2, so unfortunately the measurements in absolute numbers get pretty odd.
Add in the fact that paper manufacturers round the numbers down, that "perfect" half size goes out the window immediately on the first division. And gets worse as the paper size gets smaller.
Paper arbitrage. The globalists are stealing 51mm^2^ from you, wake up sheeple!
Even A0 isn't usually actually a square meter - 1189mm x 841mm = 999949mm^2^
Though, the other common rounding (1190mm) results in an area of 1000790mm^2^, so we're coming out ahead on that one.
^(this^ ^message^ ^brought^ ^to^ ^you^ ^by^ ^"why^ ^aren't^ ^we^ ^using^ ^B"^ ^gang)^
I believe that's basically the basis of the American size scheme. It's just the size of the paper the paper maker would give you. Records seem to indicate it was based on the sizes of paper used for bookmaking, where a standard sheet would be folded once, twice, or three times to make book page inserts.
Definitions and math:
The answer is actually fairly interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#A_series
Because not enough people know about the B size standard, which has much more reasonable widths.
Pretty sure the geometry of the image is off, despite the numbers being correct. The even sizes are slightly too square and the odd sizes are slightly too narrow. It makes me feel like somebody accidentally compressed the entire image horizontally before overlaying text over it.
Below is my attempt at remaking the image:
You'll like B series paper then
0.25 * 2^0.25
Here is an awesome video about it: The >A paper scale, and how it doesn't exactly subdivide