Talk:Stadion (unit)

Move
Stadion (unit) was cleared for a move that apparently never happened. That said, per, there is no need to use the wordier name until someone invents stadion (unit of weight), stadion (unit of pressure), or stadion (unit of boyband marketability). — Llywelyn II   02:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Unit Conversion
I think the article should have a stadion to mile conversion table that works both ways (miles -> stades : stades - > miles) at least for the itinerary stades of 157 m (515 ft) that reads along the lines of this: - Psychotic  Spartan  123 I created my on conversion formula, because I could not find any online. Now I know stades already translate into kilometers (10 litinerary stades = 1.57 km) which means one could just convert from stades to kilometers to miles, but I'd rather take the shorter route. Psychotic  Spartan  123  18:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Several objections to this:
 * nobody knows how long a stadion was, and the figure you give is just one of many arbitrary values
 * we don't include "how-to" content in our articles
 * your method is unnecessarily complex: to convert a 515-foot unit to miles, multiply by 515/5280; invert to convert the other way
 * just by the way, the plural of "stadion" is "stadia".
 * Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with Justlettersandnumbers. Dougweller (talk) 12:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm actually surprised to see somebody replied within a week (two people no less). I was kind of expecting your answer, but I figured what the hell. Thanks for the reply. Psychotic   Spartan  123  14:17, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Value of Itinerary Stadion
If you read the article cited ("The Length of Eratosthenes' Stade") then Engels gives that Letronne estimated 158.25 m, not 157 m (page 305). This was refined by Lepsius, who came up with 157.5 m, but Engels notes that there is no literary evidence for a stadion of length 157 m. So I recommend this be changed, or clarified in the table. MystRivenExile (talk) 05:05, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Google maps reveals that stadion is 192m length.
 * https://www.google.lt/maps/place/Stadium+at+Olympia/@37.6392239,21.6329574,149m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x136092ef583187f3:0x998b4c652e12df7!2sOlimpija!8m2!3d37.6384588!4d21.6298796!3m4!1s0x0:0xa688c628e753179d!8m2!3d37.6392629!4d21.6331993
 * Name "stadia" is derived from this, and length is also from this. LMFGFY (talk) 23:03, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Needs some work
I just re-organized this page a little bit. It's still confused in several places:


 * Herodotus is not the only one to provide the length of the stade in feet, and the ref should be provided.
 * The calculation of the stade as a fraction of some measurement of the earth is surely backwards. Maybe it is a confused reference to Eratosthenes' measurement of the earth's circumference? It might also be just a complete fabrication.
 * The reference to furlong is also confused. A stade and a furlong are both ⅛ of a mile (in their respective systems), so furlong was used to translate stadium in the Bible (says the OED, which doesn't cite any medieval sources either). The ref for it refers to Pausanias who surely didn't use the work furlong.

Anyway, planning to fix these up, but in case someone has a better idea about some of them, I'm making this note. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 18:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Best to proceed with caution, Eponymous-Archon - this is a subject with non-obvious complications. The use of Eratosthenes' calculation of the Earth's diameter is a case in point. If Eratosthenes was close to accurate in his estimate of the Earth's diameter, then the length of stadion he was using can be back-calculated from the number that he obtained for the Earth's diameter (which is of course a modern quantifiable known distance). As regards miles, the classical sources would be comparisons to a Roman mile, and would tend to use "rules of thumb" for practical reasons. It is debated whether the stadion was used consistently as a fixed metrological unit - given that it was apparently frequently determined by counting steps or strides between locations, it is likely to have had quite a lot of "fuzziness" in application which a deterministic algorithm would probably not capture.Orbitalforam (talk) 10:51, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

greek feet spelling
there is an article on Greek feet spelling Pous..rather than podes. I don't know enough to go correcting the spelling here though Gjxj (talk) 18:37, 5 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The plural podes seems appropriate here (pous is singular), so I don't think there's anything to correct. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * fair enough. I linked it to the page though. Gjxj (talk) 11:38, 7 August 2023 (UTC)