A scale is a system of intervals used for measurement. It can be a linear or logarithmic progression.

Scales are often used as pre-compositional guidelines or limitations for composers. The music of many cultures has a specific tone scale. Those scales usually become conventionalized within a culture over time.

Definition

A scale is a set of levels or numbers by which something can be measured. For example, an earthquake is measured on a Richter scale. The amount a person should be paid is determined on a pay scale. People also use scales to compare things, such as two rectangles of the same size. If one of them is much larger than the other, it is on a large scale. Scale can also refer to the proportion of different parts of a whole object, such as a statue or a human body.

In music, a scale is a series of tones that ascend or descend according to fixed intervals, such as the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do scale in C major. Although musical scales exist in music of nonliterate cultures, their creators were likely unaware of the rules and conventions that govern scale usage. Scale can also refer to a system of markings on a map, especially a meridian scale or parallel scale factor.

Origin

A gradation or series of steps. In geography, a scale factor is used to reduce large areas of land down to their relative size on a map. Also called map scale.

In music, a musical scale is the set of notes a piece of music uses. The earliest known musical scales are pentatonic.

Several theories of the origin of scales exist. One theory suggests that melodic vocalizations evolved first, and that scales developed around them by filling in gaps between the characteristic intervals of the voice with pitches that could be precisely tuned with musical instruments.

Another theory holds that simple musical scales have expanded over time by accumulating additional pitches through a process of transposition, in which the characteristics of a melody are transferred to different pitch levels. The most common example of this is the chromatic scale. This is especially apparent in the songs of some indigenous Australian cultures. It may also explain the “tumbling strains” described by Curt Sachs in the singing of many Aboriginal peoples.

Types

The type of scale you use to measure your data can have a significant impact on the types of statistics you can perform. Some of the most common scales are nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.

A nominal scale categorizes data into categories based on their name, not their order. For example, a gender classification in a survey would be a nominal scale. These scales don’t have a numerical significance, but they do provide some structure.

The interval scale combines properties of the nominal and ordered scales. Data points on an interval scale have an order, but their differences can also be quantified. Temperature is a common example of an interval scale.

Applications

The concept of scale is useful for a variety of applications. It can be used to enlarge or reduce the size of objects in two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometry. It is also used to create blueprints and scale plans for machinery, architecture, and construction. It is also a key part of how maps are created. Scale is also commonly used in art to represent real-world objects in a small space or a large one.

Internal economies of scale are based on specialization and the division of labor within an organization. These can lead to lower average costs for production. In addition, there are external economies of scale that arise from the purchase of inputs at a discount.

When building a scalable app, it’s important to consider how the application will handle high loads of users. This includes the use of tools and resources like application performance monitoring software to track response times, error rates, and resource utilization. It is also important to ensure that the architecture of the application supports scalability.