How Long IS A Piece Of String?

This problem, either philosophically or mathematically, has been asked by members of the human race since the advent of spoken language. With the objective of solving this conundrum, an assembly of international experts in physical sciences and philosophy has been meeting for the past 21 years.

Yesterday, the convenor of the assembly issued the following bulletin:

“On behalf of the assembly I am able to make the following public disclosure.

WE HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER!”

As the morning meeting was about to commence, I was handed a note by the delegate from Scotland. He had broken his left shoe lace and wanted to know if anyone had a spare he could borrow.

One of the more humorous delegates called out “use a piece of string, Jock”. There was some laughter at this suggestion, and then the hall fell silent.

It was a Eureka moment. The assemblage broke into spontaneous applause.

After a short discussion we collected the laces from the left shoe of every delegate. We measured each lace three times to ensure absolute accuracy. To ensure that a representative sample was taken we went into the hotel lobby and secured more laces from volunteers.

The chief mathematician then determined that with a confidence level of 99.99% the average length of all the left laces was 827 mm.

The identical process was then followed using the RIGHT shoelaces. There was no significant statistical difference in the two results.

Of course there were dissenters. Some of the delegates wore slip on shoes; one had Velcro straps; two of the arty types wore sandals; and one very fashionable lady from Paris was in stilettos.

A musician complained that we had ignored the stringed instruments of which there are millions throughout the world.

And a North American Indian who had been promoting the length of his Bow String, stormed out threatening legal action.

Some compromise was necessary as 827 MM seemed awkward, and the Americans couldn’t get their heads around anything other than even numbers. In the end we gained a unanimous agreement.

We will ask the World Standards Commission to declare that: A PIECE OF STRING shall forever hereafter be exactly 820 millimeters, or 32 imperial inches in length.