4 Mar
2012
4 Mar
'12
11:52 a.m.
On 3/4/2012 11:09 AM, Henry Baker wrote:
Some airlines& postal systems charge by the curious measure "length + width + height".
1. Is there a standard name for this measure?
2. What is the scientific/mathematical rationale for using this measure for charging?
Mathematically, this would be the L1 distance between opposite corners of the box in R^3 with axes parallel to the box edges. Letting d be the standard L2 distance, we have 1 <= m/d <= sqrt(3), so m is a rough estimate of the box diagonal length. It also imposes an upper bound on box volume, with v <= (m/3)^3.