In one of his books Haddon Robinson tells about a series of victory parades planned by General Pershing through many European capitals after World War I. He needed 27,000 soldiers to march in those parades. Each participant was to have two qualities. He was to have an unblemished military record, and second, he was to stand at least one meter, eighty-six centimeters tall.

Forty American soldiers, guarding an ammunition dump about one hundred miles from Paris, read with interest the notice about Pershing's victory marches. Each man in the company met the first qualification. The second condition, however, puzzled them. They did not know how high one meter, eighty-six centimeters was.

Since nobody in camp knew how …