Question

What is a scale and when is it used? What is most important part of setting up a proportion? Give two real-world examples of using a scale.

Answer 1

a little context may be nice.

Answer 2

do you mean as in a drawing of an object in scale, so that the drawing (in scale 1:50) is exactly 50 times smaller than the object?

Answer 3

yeah.

Answer 4

well, architects and engineers use them a lot. For buildings and planes and vehicles, boats, you name it.

The most important part of setting up a proportion is that it fits on a piece of paper, although some piece of paper can still be pretty big depending on how much detail you need. (4, 8, or 16 times the size of standard A4 is not at all uncommon).

Answer 5

you can also have a scale that makes something bigger instead of smaller, sometimes small objects (for example tools that doctors use, which are sometimes pretty small and complex to produce) have a scale that enlarges the object on drawing to show all the details.

Answer 6

thanks(: