The 1,2,4 Rule

"In general and especially on large scale the best has twice the weight than average and the average has twice the weight than worse"

First time I encountered this rule at age 10 reading "Kitab ul Khiraj" authored by Imam Abu Yousuf (the highest valued student of Imam Abu Hanifa). The book among many things told the rule of khiraj. Khiraj is an amount of money that non muslims have to pay in return of exemption from military service in an islamic state. The rule is that the rich pay 4 dinars, middle class 2 dinars and poor 2 dinars.

Another example is the amount of time efficiency in humans. Time efficiency is the amount of work done divided by the time span in which its done. We can easily observe that sometimes we work at twice the speed, sometimes the average speed and sometimes half. We can work may be ten times the average speed when under pressure or being motivated but that would not last more than a few minutes or couple of hours at extreme, so though important in competitions is useless when trying to do some calculations. In long run, that is weeks and months, an average person can work only twice the speed than the normal. On the other extreme, when well fed and well stocked with possessions a person can go lazy for sometime but usually do return to work out of boredom and do some work, although at half the normal speed.

The rule can also be observed in number of hours a person can work. The best scheme is 8 hours including breaks of prayers, eating and toilet. The actual working time thus is about 6 hours on average per working day. When under pressure it can be pressed to 12 hours of actual work resulting in 14 or 15 hours at work. On the other hand it usually reduce to 3 hours per day. These are important numbers. The work hours not fall all the way to 1 hour, nor do it rise to 20 hours. There are defined and fixed patterns on which it fluctuate like the electrons in an atom can only acquire fixed orbits and thus the planets revolving a star.

The rule can be seen in food production, both natural and artificial. In case of a bumper crop the production usually double, in case of a famine the production fall to half. Like bumper crop do not means ten times the production of food, not even 4 or 3 times in same way famine don't means no crops will be grown or only 10 or 20 percent will be grown.

The rule can also be seen in qualities of farm land. A good quality farm land usually produce twice than an average land and a worse land can produce half than the average land. The link is, along with other things, with rain. The best rain amount a land can get is 20 inches per year. At 10 inches per year the land is worse, though still not a desert; at 40 inches its best suited for lush green grass lands and thick forests but little human food.

The rule can also be seen in amount of food eaten by a person. If you are in a feast, or just greedy you can eat twice than your normal; in case of little access to food you can live on on half the normal diet as told by Hazrat Muhammed (sas) the last messenger of God.