Measurements on Roshar

[Doomdrinker]

Hey so this has been bugging me ever since I read the edgedancer short story in arcanum unbound, in the pre script it is mentions that measurements on roshar are slightly bigger than normal. So what is the exact conversion of say inches on roshar to inches in real life? 

[Paintweaver]

In addition to @Elegy I can actually only add this WOB:

Quote

Questioner

I was wondering if you know, like, exactly how tall Kaladin is?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... Kaladin? 6'-4". But you've got to remember... People on Roshar are taller than people here. So like 6'-4" compared to someone else in Roshar. But it's a low gravity, high oxygen environment which means that he's probably more like 6'-8", or something like that. Like you're gonna see... But it-- that's only-- you know, like for instance their year is different than ours too, and things like that. If you just want to imagine him at 6'-4" that's fine.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

So, apparently the measurements are x1.06. Hence, when Kaladin is around 6'8", then Shallan might be 5'9" on earth. Rock - who is described as almost 7 feet tall - is probably as tall as a small Koloss!

[GoWibble]

15 minutes ago, Doomdrinker said:

So what is the exact conversion of say inches on roshar to inches in real life?

So it is more that the measurements are slightly bigger than the cosmere standard / average. Can you quote the place that you see this?

[Honorless]

I remember that Rosharan years are longer but I don't remember anything about units of length

Edited July 6, 2020 by R J

[Elegy]

Yes, it's different:

Quote

Questioner

How tall is Kaladin?

Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin I think is 6' 4"? But I'm not 100% sure how the equivalent-- Like he is 6' 4" to Rosharans, which may actually put him several inches taller to the 6' 4", like the feet on Roshar are not exactly the same as feet here.

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

Quote

sheesania

Shallan's comment in Words of Radiance that she's "five foot six inches" jerks me out of the story every time, particularly because I'm used to the metric system. I understand in my head how Sanderson is translating for the readers whatever Rosharan measures she actually used...but it's still jarring whenever I actually come across it while reading.

Peter Ahlstrom

Measuring by foot was extremely common in our world. Many European countries had their own standard foot. It just makes sense that humans would measure by feet.

The Vorin foot probably has 10 inches.

General Reddit 2016 (Oct. 7, 2016)

@paintweaver can probably say more about this. She has done some research on it.

[Doomdrinker]

I will find the exact quote.

It would be very interesting if Kaladin is 6'4" as that's how tall I am. 

[Doomdrinker]

So here's the exact quote 

Chapter 63

"Be aware that lengths and times used in essays and stories about the world usually use local measurements, a rosharan year is longer than cosmere standard and a rosharan foot is longer than cosmere standard."

It's at the very end of the chapter, I only have the audio book so I dont know the page number 

[Doomdrinker]

2 hours ago, paintweaver said:

In addition to @Elegy I can actually only add this WOB:

So, apparently the measurements are x1.06. Hence, when Kaladin is around 6'8", then Shallan might be 5'9" on earth. Rock - who is described as almost 7 feet tall - is probably as tall as a small Koloss!

Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for.

[+Bzhydack]

 

Quote

 

Questioner

I was wondering if you know, like, exactly how tall Kaladin is?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... Kaladin? 6'-4". But you've got to remember... People on Roshar are taller than people here. So like 6'-4" compared to someone else in Roshar. But it's a low gravity, high oxygen environment which means that he's probably more like 6'-8", or something like that. Like you're gonna see... But it-- that's only-- you know, like for instance their year is different than ours too, and things like that. If you just want to imagine him at 6'-4" that's fine.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

 

 

19 hours ago, paintweaver said:

In addition to @Elegy I can actually only add this WOB:

So, apparently the measurements are x1.06. Hence, when Kaladin is around 6'8", then Shallan might be 5'9" on earth. Rock - who is described as almost 7 feet tall - is probably as tall as a small Koloss!

 

21 hours ago, Elegy said:

Peter Ahlstrom

Measuring by foot was extremely common in our world. Many European countries had their own standard foot. It just makes sense that humans would measure by feet.

The Vorin foot probably has 10 inches.

So 1,06 will be not exact number, if we consider Vorin Foot has 10 inches, not 12. So:

Kaladin is 6'4'' in vorin measurment, but this will be 64 inches. He also is 6'8'' in imperial system, but this is 80 inches. This mean Kaladin is 203 cm tall in metric (!). Standard inch is 2,54 cm, but consider this change, vorin inch will be 3,17 cm.

So Vorin inch 1,25x standard inch, but vorin foot is just 1,05x standard foot.

[Elegy]

29 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

So 1,06 will be not exact number, if we consider Vorin Foot has 10 inches, not 12. So:

Kaladin is 6'4'' in vorin measurment, but this will be 64 inches. He also is 6'8'' in imperial system, but this is 80 inches. This mean Kaladin is 203 cm tall in metric (!). Standard inch is 2,54 cm, but consider this change, vorin inch will be 3,17 cm.

So Vorin inch 1,25x standard inch, but vorin foot is just 1,05x standard foot.

Peter's comment is kinda confusing in that regard. My interpretation of his statement would be: The foot is still the same measurement as Brandon said, but is not divided into 12 equal inches as it's the case on Earth, but into 10 equal inches. So Peter's statement only means that the inches within a Vorin foot are larger and fewer, not that the Vorin feet are smaller. After all, Peter says that a Vorin foot "has" 10 inches, not that it "is" 10 inches. But it's not entirely clear.

So, if he really meant that, a Vorin foot would be 1.06 Earth feet, and a Vorin inch would be 0.106 Earth feet.

Well, but it's all an estimate anyway. There's a lot of "probablies" involved~