Paper

I read today in The Straight Dope the question about how the 8 1/2x11 and legal (8 1/2x14) paper sizes used in the US were decided upon. The short answer is they don't really know, but what I found more interesting was the bit at the bottom explaining the A system of paper sizes used in Europe:

The basic A-series sheet, A0, is one square meter in area, 841x1189mm. You fold that in half to get A1, you fold THAT in half to get A2, till eventually you get down to A4, A5, A6, etc.

All A sizes are in the proportion 1 wide by the square root of 2 deep (1:1.414...). It's a bit compulsive and you will not be surprised to learn it was thought up by the Germans. A-series paper became an international standard, though not an American one, in 1930.

A bit compulsive, yes, but it works nicely, the whole folding in half thing, and it produces a sheet of paper that I find quite elegant now. I didn't always. When I first moved here, I felt A4 was too long and narrow compared to letter paper. And I had a particular relationship with letter paper. I'd used a hell of a lot of it throughout school (I handwrote all but about two of my college papers, including my senior paper, and then went to the computer lab to type them up) and so it was the familiar size that I'd worked with so much. Now, when I get something in the mail from the US and it's on letter paper, it looks so square and squat. I'm a hardcore A4 person now.