Foot (unit)

Last updated

foot
Unit system Imperial/US units
Unit of Length
Symbolft or ′
Conversions
1 ft in ...... is equal to ...
   Imperial/US units   1/3  yd
   12  in
    Metric (SI) units   0.3048  m

30.48 cm

304.8 mm

The foot (pl. feet), standard symbol: ft, [1] [2] is a unit of length in the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. The prime symbol, ′, is a customarily used alternative symbol. [3] Since the International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959, one foot is defined as 0.3048  meters exactly. In both customary and imperial units, one foot comprises 12  inches and one yard comprises three feet.

Contents

Historically the "foot" was a part of many local systems of units, including the Greek, Roman, Chinese, French, and English systems. It varied in length from country to country, from city to city, and sometimes from trade to trade. Its length was usually between 250 mm and 335 mm and was generally, but not always, subdivided into 12 inches or 16  digits.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that uses the international foot and the survey foot (a customary unit of length) in preference to the meter in its commercial, engineering, and standards activities. [4] The foot is legally recognized in the United Kingdom; road signs must use imperial units (however, distances on road signs are always marked in miles or yards, not feet), while its usage is widespread among the British public as a measurement of height. [5] [6] The foot is recognized as an alternative expression of length in Canada [7] officially defined as a unit derived from the meter [8] although both the U.K. and Canada have partially metricated their units of measurement. The measurement of altitude in international aviation is one of the few areas where the foot is used outside the English-speaking world.

The length of the international foot corresponds to a human foot with shoe size of 13 (UK), 14 (US male), 15.5 (US female) or 48 (EU sizing).

Historical origin

Determination of the rod, using the length of the left foot of 16 randomly chosen people coming from church service. Woodcut published in the book Geometrei by Jakob Kobel (Frankfurt, c. 1535). Determination of the rute and the feet in Frankfurt.png
Determination of the rod, using the length of the left foot of 16 randomly chosen people coming from church service. Woodcut published in the book Geometrei by Jakob Köbel (Frankfurt, c. 1535).

Historically, the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length. [9] The foot of an adult Caucasian male is typically about 15.3% of his height, [10] giving a person of 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) a foot-length of about 268 mm (10.6 in), on average.

Archaeologists believe that, in the past, the people of Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia preferred the cubit, while the people of Rome, Greece, and China preferred the foot. Under the Harappan linear measures, Indus cities during the Bronze Age used a foot of 333.5 mm (13.2 in) and a cubit of 528.3 mm (20.8 in). [11] The Egyptian equivalent of the foot—a measure of four palms or 16 digits—was known as the djeser and has been reconstructed as about 30 cm (11.8 in).

The Greek foot (πούς, pous) had a length of 1/600 of a stadion, [12] one stadion being about 181.2 m (594 ft); [13] therefore a foot was, at the time, about 302 mm (11.9 in). Its exact size varied from city to city and could range between 270 mm (10.6 in) and 350 mm (13.8 in), but lengths used for temple construction appear to have been about 295 mm (11.6 in) to 325 mm (12.8 in); the former was close to the size of the Roman foot.

The standard Roman foot (pes) was normally about 295.7 mm (11.6 in) (97% of today's measurement), [14] but, in the provinces, the so-called pes Drusianus (foot of Nero Claudius Drusus) was used, with a length of about 334 mm (13.1 in). (In reality, this foot predated Drusus.) [15]

Originally both the Greeks and the Romans subdivided the foot into 16 digits, but in later years, the Romans also subdivided the foot into 12 unciae (from which both the English words "inch" and "ounce" are derived).

After the fall of the Roman Empire, some Roman traditions were continued but others fell into disuse. In AD 790 Charlemagne attempted to reform the units of measure in his domains. His units of length were based on the toise and in particular the toise de l'Écritoire, the distance between the fingertips of the outstretched arms of a man. [16] The toise has 6 pieds (feet) each of 326.6 mm (12.9 in).

He was unsuccessful in introducing a standard unit of length throughout his realm: an analysis of the measurements of Charlieu Abbey shows that during the 9th century the Roman foot of 296.1 mm (11.66 in) was used; when it was rebuilt in the 10th century, a foot of about 320 mm (12.6 in) [Note 1] was used. At the same time, monastic buildings used the Carolingian foot of 340 mm (13.4 in). [Note 1] [17]

The procedure for verification of the foot as described in the 16th century posthumously published work by Jacob Köbel in his book Geometrei. Von künstlichem Feldmessen und absehen is: [18] [19]

Stand at the door of a church on a Sunday and bid 16 men to stop, tall ones and small ones, as they happen to pass out when the service is finished; then make them put their left feet one behind the other, and the length thus obtained shall be a right and lawful rood to measure and survey the land with, and the 16th part of it shall be the right and lawful foot.

England

The unofficial public imperial measurement standards erected at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in the 19th century Imperial measurement standards, Greenwich.JPG
The unofficial public imperial measurement standards erected at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in the 19th century

The Neolithic long foot, first proposed by archeologists Mike Parker Pearson and Andrew Chamberlain, is based upon calculations from surveys of Phase 1 elements at Stonehenge. They found that the underlying diameters of the stone circles had been consistently laid out using multiples of a base unit amounting to 30 long feet, which they calculated to be 1.056 of a modern international foot (thus 12.672 inches or 0.3219 m). Furthermore, this unit is identifiable in the dimensions of some stone lintels at the site and in the diameter of the "southern circle" at nearby Durrington Walls. Evidence that this unit was in widespread use across southern Britain is available from the Folkton Drums from Yorkshire (neolithic artifacts, made from chalk, with circumferences that exactly divide as integers into ten long feet) and a similar object, the Lavant drum, excavated at Lavant, Sussex, again with a circumference divisible as a whole number into ten long feet. [20]

The measures of Iron Age Britain are uncertain and proposed reconstructions such as the Megalithic Yard are controversial. Later Welsh legend credited Dyfnwal Moelmud with the establishment of their units, including a foot of 9 inches. The Belgic or North German foot of 335 mm (13.2 in) was introduced to England either by the Belgic Celts during their invasions prior to the Romans or by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th and 6th century.

Roman units were introduced following their invasion in AD 43. Following the Roman withdrawal and Saxon invasions, the Roman foot continued to be used in the construction crafts while the Belgic foot was used for land measurement. Both the Welsh and Belgic feet seem to have been based on multiples of the barleycorn, but by as early as 950 the English kings seem to have (ineffectually) ordered measures to be based upon an iron yardstick at Winchester and then London. Henry I was said to have ordered a new standard to be based upon the length of his own arm and, by the c. 1300 Act concerning the Composition of Yards and Perches [21] traditionally credited to Edward I or II, the statute foot was a different measure, exactly 10/11 of the old (Belgic) foot. The barleycorn, inch, ell, and yard were likewise shrunk, while rods and furlongs remained the same. [22] The ambiguity over the state of the mile was resolved by the 1593 Act against Converting of Great Houses into Several Tenements and for Restraint of Inmates and Inclosures in and near about the City of London and Westminster, which codified the statute mile as comprising 5,280 feet. The differences among the various physical standard yards around the world, revealed by increasingly powerful microscopes, eventually led to the 1959 adoption of the international foot defined in terms of the meter.

Definition

International foot

The international yard and pound agreement of July 1959 defined the length of the international yard in the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations as exactly 0.9144 meters. Consequently, the international foot is defined to be equal to exactly 0.3048 meters. This was 2  ppm shorter than the previous U.S. definition and 1.7 ppm longer than the previous British definition. [23]

The 1959 agreement concluded a series of step-by-step events, set off in particular by the British Standards Institution's adoption of a scientific standard inch of 25.4 millimetres in 1930.

Symbol

The IEEE standard symbol for a foot is "ft". [1] In some cases, the foot is denoted by a prime, often approximated by an apostrophe, and the inch by a double prime; for example, 2 feet 4 inches is sometimes denoted as 2′ 4″. [3]

Imperial units

In Imperial units, the foot was defined as 1/3 yard, with the yard being realized as a physical standard (separate from the standard meter). The yard standards of the different Commonwealth countries were periodically compared with one another. [24] The value of the United Kingdom primary standard of the yard was determined in terms of the meter by the National Physical Laboratory in 1964 to be 0.9143969 m, [25] implying a pre-1959 UK foot of 0.3047990 m.

The UK adopted the international yard for all purposes through the Weights and Measures Act 1963, effective 1 January 1964. [26]

Survey foot

When the international foot was defined in 1959, a great deal of survey data was already available based on the former definitions, especially in the United States and in India. The small difference between the survey foot and the international foot would not be detectable on a survey of a small parcel, but becomes significant for mapping, or when the state plane coordinate system (SPCS) is used in the US, because the origin of the system may be hundreds of thousands of feet (hundreds of miles) from the point of interest. Hence the previous definitions continued to be used for surveying in the United States and India for many years, and are denoted survey feet to distinguish them from the international foot. The United Kingdom was unaffected by this problem, as the retriangulation of Great Britain (1936–62) had been done in meters.

U.S. survey foot

In the United States, the foot was defined as 12 inches, with the inch being defined by the Mendenhall Order of 1893 as 39.37 inches = 1 m (making a US foot exactly 1200/3937 meters, approximately 0.30480061 m). [27] [28] Out of 50 states and six other jurisdictions, 40 have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, six have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and ten have not specified. [29]

State legislation is also important for determining the conversion factor to be used for everyday land surveying and real estate transactions, although the difference (two parts per million) is of no practical significance given the precision of normal surveying measurements over short distances (usually much less than a mile).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Geodetic Survey, and the United States Department of Commerce are phasing out the US survey foot beginning in 2023. [30] [31] [27]

Indian survey foot

The Indian survey foot is defined as exactly 0.3047996 m, [32] presumably derived from a measurement of the previous Indian standard of the yard. The current National Topographic Database of the Survey of India is based on the metric WGS-84 datum, [33] which is also used by the Global Positioning System.

Historical use

Page from Austrian Lehrbuch des gesammten Rechnens fur die vierte Classe der Hauptschulen in den k.k. Staaten - 1848 (Combined mathematics textbook for the fourth form of senior schools in the Imperial & Royal states.) Fussmasse1.jpg
Page from Austrian Lehrbuch des gesammten Rechnens für die vierte Classe der Hauptschulen in den k.k. Staaten – 1848 (Combined mathematics textbook for the fourth form of senior schools in the Imperial & Royal states.)

Metric foot

An ISO 2848 measure of 3 basic modules (30 cm) is called a "metric foot", but there were earlier distinct definitions of a metric foot during metrication in France and Germany.

France

In 1799 the meter became the official unit of length in France. This was not fully enforced, and in 1812 Napoleon introduced the system of mesures usuelles which restored the traditional French measurements in the retail trade, but redefined them in terms of metric units. The foot, or pied métrique, was defined as one third of a meter. This unit continued in use until 1837. [35]

Germany

In southwestern Germany in 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine was founded and three different reformed feet were defined, all of which were based on the metric system: [36]

  • In Hesse, the Fuß (foot) was redefined as 25 cm.
  • In Baden, the Fuß was redefined as 30 cm.
  • In the Palatinate, the Fuß was redefined as being 33+1/3 cm (as in France).

Other obsolete feet

Prior to the introduction of the metric system, many European cities and countries used the foot, but it varied considerably in length: the voet in Ypres, Belgium, was 273.8 millimeters (10.78 in) while the piede in Venice was 347.73 millimeters (13.690 in). Lists of conversion factors between the various units of measure were given in many European reference works including:

Many of these standards were peculiar to a particular city, especially in Germany (which, before German Unification in 1871, consisted of many kingdoms, principalities, free cities and so on). In many cases the length of the unit was not uniquely fixed: for example, the English foot was stated as 11 pouces 2.6 lignes (French inches and lines) by Picard, 11 pouces 3.11 lignes by Maskelyne and 11 pouces 3 lignes by D'Alembert. [44]

Most of the various feet in this list ceased to be used when the countries adopted the metric system. The Netherlands and modern Belgium adopted the metric system in 1817, having used the mesures usuelles under Napoleon [45] and the newly formed German Empire adopted the metric system in 1871. [46]

The palm (typically 200 mm to 280 mm) was used in many Mediterranean cities instead of the foot. Horace Doursther, whose reference was published[ clarification needed ] in Belgium which had the smallest foot measurements, grouped both units together, while J.F.G. Palaiseau devoted three chapters to units of length: one for linear measures (palms and feet), one for cloth measures (ells) and one for distances traveled (miles and leagues). In the table below, arbitrary cut-off points of 270 mm and 350 mm have been chosen.

LocationModern countryLocal nameMetric
equivalent
(mm)		Comments
Vienna AustriaWiener Fuß316.102 [43] [47]
Tyrol AustriaFuß334.12 [36]
Ypres (Ieper) Belgiumvoet273.8 [48]
Bruges/Brugge Belgiumvoet274.3 [48]
Brussels Belgiumvoet275.75 [48]
Hainaut Belgiumpied293.39 [40]
Liège Belgiumpied294.70 [40]
Kortrijk Belgiumvoet297.6 [48]
Aalst Belgiumvoet277.2 [48]
Mechelen Belgiumvoet278.0 [48]
Leuven Belgiumvoet285.5 [48]
Tournai Belgiumpied297.77 [40]
Antwerp Belgiumvoet286.8 [48]
China Chinatradesman's foot338.3 [49]
ChinaChinamathematician's foot333.2 [49]
ChinaChinabuilder's foot322.8 [49]
ChinaChinasurveyor's foot319.5 [49]
Moravia Czech Republicstopa295.95 [36]
Prague Czech Republicstopa296.4 [42] (1851) Bohemian foot or shoe
301.7 [37] (1759) Quoted as "11 pouces1+3/4lignes" [Notes 1]
Denmark DenmarkFod313.85 [43] Until 1835, thereafter the Prussian foot
330.5 [37] (1759) Quoted as "2+1/2lignes larger than the pied [of Paris]" [Notes 1]
France Francepied du roi324.84 [50] [Notes 2]
Angoulême Francepied d'Angoulême347.008 [51]
Bordeaux (urban)Francepied de ville de Bordeaux343.606 [51]
Bordeaux (rural)Francepied de terre de Bordeaux357.214 [51]
Strasbourg Francepied de Strasbourg294.95 [51]
Württemberg GermanyFuß286.49 [36]
Hanover GermanyFuß292.10 [36]
Augsburg GermanyRömischer Fuß296.17 [41]
Nuremberg GermanyFuß303.75 [41]
Meiningen-Hildburghausen GermanyFuß303.95 [36]
Oldenburg GermanyRömischer Fuß296.41 [36]
Weimar GermanyFuß281.98 [36]
Lübeck GermanyFuß287.62 [43]
Aschaffenburg GermanyFuß287.5 [40]
Darmstadt GermanyFuß287.6 [40] Until 1818, thereafter the Hessen "metric foot"
Bremen GermanyFuß289.35 [43]
Rhineland GermanyFuß313.7 [49]
Berlin GermanyFuß309.6 [49]
Hamburg GermanyFuß286.8 [49]
Bavaria GermanyFuß291.86 [36]
Aachen GermanyFuß282.1 [41]
Leipzig GermanyFuß282.67 [36]
Dresden GermanyFuß283.11 [36]
Saxony GermanyFuß283.19 [43]
Prussia Germany, Poland, Russia etc.Rheinfuß313.85 [43]
Frankfurt am Main GermanyFuß284.61 [36]
Venice & Lombardy Italy347.73 [36]
Turin Italy323.1 [49]
Rome Italypiede romano297.896 [51]
Riga Latviapēda274.1 [49]
Malta Maltapied283.7 [49]
Utrecht Netherlandsvoet272.8 [49]
Amsterdam Netherlandsvoet283.133 [39] Divided into 11 duimen (inches)
Honsbossche en Rijpse Netherlandsvoet285.0 [39]
’s Hertogenbosch Netherlandsvoet287.0 [39]
Gelderland Netherlandsvoet292.0 [39]
Bloois (Zeeland) Netherlandsvoet301.0 [39]
Schouw Netherlandsvoet311.0 [39]
Rotterdam Netherlandsvoet312.43 [40]
Rijnland Netherlandsvoet314.858 [39]
Norway Norwayfot313.75 [52] (1824–1835) [Notes 3] Thereafter as for Sweden.
Warsaw Polandstopa297.8 [53] Until 1819
288.0 [40] (From 1819) Polish stopa
Lisbon PortugalPé330.0 [41] (From 1835) [Notes 4]
South Africa South Africa Cape foot 314.858 [54] Originally equal to the Rijnland foot; redefined as 1.033 English feet in 1859.
Burgos and Castile SpainPie de Burgos/
Castellano		278.6 [37] (1759) Quoted as "122.43 lignes" [Notes 1]
Toledo SpainPie279.0 [37] (1759) Quoted as "10 pouces 3.7 lignes" [Notes 1]
Sweden Swedenfot296.9 [43] = 12 tum (inches). The Swedish fot was also used in Finland ("jalka").
Zürich Switzerland300.0 [49]
Galicia Ukraine, Polandstopa galicyjska296.96 [40] Part of Austria before World War I
Scotland United Kingdomfuit, fit, troigh305.287 [55] [Notes 5]

(In Belgium, the words pied (French) and voet (Dutch) would have been used interchangeably.)

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 The source document used pre-metric French units (pied, pouce and lignes)
  2. ↑ The original meter was computed using pre-metric French Units
  3. ↑ The Norwegian fot was defined in 1824 as the length of a (theoretical) pendulum that would have a period of 12/38 seconds at 45° from the equator
  4. ↑ Prior to 1835, the pé or foot was not used in Portugal – instead a palm was used. In 1835 the size of the palm was increased from 217.37 mm (according to Palaiseau) to 220 mm
  5. ↑ The Scots foot ceased to be legal after the Act of Union in 1707

Present day uses

International ISO-standard and other intermodal shipping containers

International Standards Organisation (ISO)-defined intermodal containers for efficient global freight/cargo shipping, were defined using feet rather than meters for their leading outside (corner) dimensions. All ISO-standard containers to this day are eight feet wide, and their outer heights and lengths are also primarily defined in, or derived from feet.
Quantities of global shipping containers are still primarily counted in Twenty-foot Equivalent Units, or TEUs.

Aviation

Everyday global (civilian) air traffic / aviation continues to be controlled in flight levels (flying altitudes) separated by thousands of feet (although typically read out in hundreds - e.g. flight level 330 actually means 33,000 feet, or about 10 kilometres in altitude).

Dimension

In measurement, the term "linear foot" (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "lineal foot") refers to the number of feet in a length of material (such as lumber or fabric) without regard to the width; it is used to distinguish from surface area in square foot . [56]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 The original reference was given in a round number of centimeters

Related Research Articles

Acre Unit of area

The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong, which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, 1⁄640 of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m2, or about 40% of a hectare. Based upon the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac, but is usually spelled out as the word "acre".

Furlong Unit of length equal to 660 feet or about 201 metres

A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now almost obsolete, except in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths.

Inch Unit of length

The inch is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to 1/36 yard or 1/12 of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth"), the word inch is also sometimes used to translate similar units in other measurement systems, usually understood as deriving from the width of the human thumb.

Imperial units System of units that were implemented on 1 January 1826 in the British Empire

The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed through a series of Weights and Measures Acts and amendments.

Litre Unit of volume

The litre or liter is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). A cubic decimetre occupies a volume of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm and is thus equal to one-thousandth of a cubic metre.

Metre SI unit of length

The metre or meter is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). The SI unit symbol is m.

Mile Unit of length

The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards. The statute mile was standardised between the British Commonwealth and the United States by an international agreement in 1959, when it was formally redefined with respect to SI units as exactly 1,609.344 metres.

Metrication Conversion to the metric system of measurement

Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, nations have transitioned from their local and traditional units of measurement to the metric system. This process began in France during the 1790s, and continues more than two centuries later—with the modern SI system—as the metric system has not been fully adopted in all countries and sectors.

United States customary units System of units of measurement commonly used in the United States

United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and U.S. territories since being standardized and adopted in 1832. The United States customary system developed from English units which were in use in the British Empire before the U.S. became an independent country. The United Kingdom's system of measures was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, which was officially adopted in 1826, changing the definitions of some of its units. Subsequently, while many U.S. units are essentially similar to their imperial counterparts, there are significant differences between the systems.

Yard Unit of length

The yard is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.9144 meter. A distance of 1,760 yards is equal to 1 mile.

The rod, perch, or pole is a surveyor's tool and unit of length of various historical definitions, often between approximately 3 and 8 meters. In modern US customary units it is defined as 16+1⁄2 US survey feet, equal to exactly 1⁄320 of a surveyor's mile, or a quarter of a surveyor's chain, and is approximately 5.0292 meters. The rod is useful as a unit of length because whole number multiples of it can form one acre of square measure (area). The 'perfect acre' is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet long and 66 feet wide or, equivalently, 40 rods and 4 rods. An acre is therefore 160 square rods or 10 square chains.

Metrication in the United States Adoption of the metric system in the US

Metrication is the process of introducing the International System of Units, also known as SI units or the metric system, to replace a jurisdiction's traditional measuring units. Although U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of metric units since the 19th century, the United States is one of only three countries that, as of 2022, have not officially adopted the metric system as the primary means of weights and measurements.

Mesures usuelles were a French system of measurement introduced by Napoleon I in 1812 to act as compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements. The system was restricted to use in the retail industry and continued in use until 1840, when the laws of measurement from the 1795 and 1799 were reinstituted.

A system of measurement is a collection of units of measurement and rules relating them to each other. Systems of measurement have historically been important, regulated and defined for the purposes of science and commerce. Systems of measurement in use include the International System of Units or SI, the British imperial system, and the United States customary system.

The following systems arose from earlier systems, and in many cases utilise parts of much older systems. For the most part they were used to varying degrees in the Middle Ages and surrounding time periods. Some of these systems found their way into later systems, such as the Imperial system and even SI.

Link (unit)

The link, sometimes called a Gunter’s link, is a unit of length formerly used in many English-speaking countries. In US customary units modern definition, the link is exactly 66⁄100 of a US survey foot, or exactly 7.92 inches or approximately 20.12 cm.

Units of measurement in France Units of measurement used in France

France has a unique history of units of measurement due to its radical decision to invent and adopt the metric system after the French Revolution.

History of measurement Aspect of history

The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction and trade. Early standard units might only have applied to a single community or small region, with every area developing its own standards for lengths, areas, volumes and masses. Often such systems were closely tied to one field of use, so that volume measures used, for example, for dry grains were unrelated to those for liquids, with neither bearing any particular relationship to units of length used for measuring cloth or land. With development of manufacturing technologies, and the growing importance of trade between communities and ultimately across the Earth, standardized weights and measures became critical. Starting in the 18th century, modernized, simplified and uniform systems of weights and measures were developed, with the fundamental units defined by ever more precise methods in the science of metrology. The discovery and application of electricity was one factor motivating the development of standardized internationally applicable units.

Comparison of the imperial and US customary measurement systems

Both the British Imperial and United States customary systems of measurement derive from earlier English systems used in the Middle Ages, that were the result of a combination of the local Anglo-Saxon units inherited from Germanic tribes and Roman units brought by William the Conqueror after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

Imperial and US customary measurement systems English (pre 1824), Imperial (post 1824) and US Customary (post 1776) units of measure

The imperial and US customary measurement systems are both derived from an earlier English system of measurement which in turn can be traced back to Ancient Roman units of measurement, and Carolingian and Saxon units of measure.

References

  1. 1 2 "Recommended Unit Symbols, SI Prefixes, and Abbreviations" (PDF). Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  2. ↑ BS350:Part 1:1974 Conversion factors and tables Part 1. Basis of tables. Conversion factors. British Standards Institution. 1974. pp. 5, 91.
  3. 1 2 Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2017. ¶ 10.66.
  4. ↑ "Appendix G – Weights and Measures". The World Factbook. Washington: Central Intelligence Agency. January 17, 2007. Archived from the original on February 23, 2011. Retrieved February 4, 2007.
  5. ↑ Kelly, Jon (December 21, 2011). "Will British people ever think in metric?". BBC. Archived from the original on April 24, 2012.
  6. ↑ Alder, Ken (2002). The Measure of all Things—The Seven-Year-Odyssey that Transformed the World. London: Abacus.
  7. ↑ Weights and Measures Act Archived December 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine , accessed January 2012, Act current to 2012-01-18. Basis for units of measurement 4.(1) All units of measurement used in Canada shall be determined on the basis of the International System of Units established by the General Conference of Weights and Measures. (...) Canadian units (5) The Canadian units of measurement are as set out and defined in Schedule II, and the symbols and abbreviations therefore are as added pursuant to subparagraph 6(1)(b)(ii).
  8. ↑ Weights and Measures Act Archived October 16, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Oswald Ashton Wentworth Dilke (May 22, 1987). Mathematics and measurement. University of California Press. p.  23. ISBN   978-0-520-06072-2 . Retrieved February 2, 2012.
  10. ↑ Fessler, Daniel M; Haley, Kevin J; Lal, Roshni D (January–February 2005). "Sexual dimorphism in foot length proportionate to stature" (PDF). Annals of Human Biology. 32 (1): 44–59. doi:10.1080/03014460400027581. PMID   15788354. S2CID   194735. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 8, 2011.
  11. ↑ Kenoyer JM (2010) "Measuring the Harappan world," in Morley I & Renfrew C (edd) The Archaeology of Measurement, 117; "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 26, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. ↑ Herodotus; Rawlinson, George (May 14, 1861). "History of Herodotus : a new English version". New York D. Appleton – via Internet Archive.
  13. ↑ "Epidauros, Stadium (Building)". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on May 10, 2017.
  14. ↑ Hosch, William L. (ed.) (2010) The Britannica Guide to Numbers and Measurement New York, NY: Britannica Educational Publications, 1st edition. ISBN   978-1-61530-108-9, p.206
  15. ↑ Oswald Ashton Wentworth Dilke (May 22, 1987). Mathematics and measurement. University of California Press. p.  26. ISBN   978-0-520-06072-2 . Retrieved February 2, 2012.
  16. ↑ Russ Rowlett. "How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement". Center for Mathematics and Science Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Archived from the original on February 2, 2013. Retrieved February 28, 2011.
  17. ↑ Sutherland, Elizabeth R (May 1957). "Feet and dates at Charlieu". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 16 (2): 2–5. doi:10.2307/987740. JSTOR   987740.
  18. ↑ Jacob Koebel (1535). Geometrei. Von künstlichem Feldmessen und absehen (in German). Archived from the original on November 16, 2011.
  19. ↑ "Geometrey". digital.slub-dresden.de (in German). Saxon State Library. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  20. ↑ Teather, Anne; et al. (February 8, 2019). "Getting the Measure of Stonehenge". British Archaeology (165): 48–51.
  21. ↑ Great Britain (1762). The statutes at large: from the Magna Charta, to the end of the eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, anno 1761 (continued to 1807). The statutes at large. Vol. 1. Printed by J. Bentham. p. 400. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
  22. ↑ Zupko, Ronald Edward (1977). British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 6, 10, 20. ISBN   978-0-299-07340-4.
  23. ↑ "On what basis is one inch exactly equal to 25.4 mm? Has the imperial inch been adjusted to give this exact fit and if so when?". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on August 7, 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2012.
  24. ↑ See, for example, Report on the Comparisons of the Parliamentary Copies of the Imperial Standards with the Imperial Standard Yard and the Imperial Standard Pound and with each other during the Years 1947 to 1948 (H.M.S.O., London, 1950). Report on the Comparisons of the Parliamentary Copies of the Imperial Standards with each other during the Year 1957 (H.M.S.O., London, 1958).
  25. ↑ Bigg, P. H.; Anderton, Pamela (March 1964). "The United Kingdom standards of the yard in terms of the meter". British Journal of Applied Physics. 15 (3): 291–300. Bibcode:1964BJAP...15..291B. doi:10.1088/0508-3443/15/3/308. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2009.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  26. ↑ Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2002] EWHC 195 (Admin) (18 February 2002)
  27. 1 2 Mitchell, Alanna (August 18, 2020). "America Has Two Feet. It's About to Lose One of Them". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved August 19, 2020.
  28. ↑ A. V. Astin & H. Arnold Karo, (1959), Refinement of values for the yard and the pound Archived August 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine , Washington DC: National Bureau of Standards, republished on National Geodetic Survey web site and the Federal Register (Doc. 59-5442, Filed, June 30, 1959, 8:45 am)
  29. ↑ "State Plane Coordinate System", National Geodetic Survey, May 4, 2019.
  30. ↑ U.S. Survey Foot | NIST - Putting the Best “Foot” Forward: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot (1959 to 2022)
  31. ↑ "Measuring Unit Change Coming in 2022", National Geodetic Survey, June 14, 2019.
  32. ↑ Schedule to the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976.
  33. ↑ Survey of India, "National Map Policy – 2005" Archived March 31, 2010, at the Wayback Machine .
  34. ↑ Dr. Franz Mozhnik: Lehrbuch des gesammten Rechnens für die vierte Classe der Hauptschulen in den k.k. Staaten. Im Verlage der k.k. Schulbücher Verschleiß-Administration bey St. Anna in der Johannisgasse – Wien 1848
  35. ↑ Denis Février. "Un historique du mètre" (in French). Ministère de l'Économie, des Finances et de l'Industrie. Archived from the original on February 28, 2011. Retrieved March 10, 2011.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Amtliche Maßeinheiten in Europa 1842" [Official measures in Europe 1842] (in German). Archived from the original on July 23, 2013. Retrieved September 22, 2012.
  37. 1 2 3 4 5 d'Anville, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon (1769). Traité des mesures itinéraires anciennes et modernes [Treatise of ancient and modern measures of distance] (in French). Paris: de l'Imprimerie Royale. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  38. ↑ Palaiseau, JFG (October 1816). Métrologie universelle, ancienne et moderne: ou rapport des poids et mesures des empires, royaumes, duchés et principautés des quatre parties du monde. Bordeaux. Retrieved October 30, 2011.
  39. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Jacob de Gelder (1824). Allereerste Gronden der Cijferkunst [Introduction to Numeracy] (in Dutch). 's-Gravenhage (The Hague) and Amsterdam: de Gebroeders van Cleef. pp.  163–176. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Doursther, Horace (1840). Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures anciens et modernes. Brussels: M. Hayez. pp.  402–418. Retrieved October 25, 2011. liege.
  41. 1 2 3 4 5 Noback, Christian; Noback, Friedrich Eduard (1851). Vollständiges tasehenbuch der Münz-, Maass- und Gewichts-Verhältnisse etc. aller Länder und Handelsplätze [Comprehensive pocketbook of money, weights and measures for all counties and trading centres] (in German). Vol. I. Leipzig: F. А. Brockhaus. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  42. 1 2 Noback, Christian; Noback, Friedrich Eduard (1851). Vollständiges tasehenbuch der Münz-, Maass- und Gewichts-Verhältnisse etc. aller Länder und Handelsplätze [Comprehensive pocketbook of money, weights and measures for all counties and trading centres] (in German). Vol. II. Leipzig: F. А. Brockhaus. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  43. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Bruhns, Carl (1881). new manual of logarithms to seven places of decimals. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. p. 610. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
  44. ↑ Thomas Jefferson (July 13, 1790). "Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States". United States House of Representatives. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved November 8, 2011.
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  46. ↑ Andreas Dreizler; et al. (April 20, 2009). "Metrologie" (PDF) (in German). Technische Universität Darmstadt. Retrieved March 28, 2011.[ dead link ]
  47. ↑ File
  48. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Maten en gewichten" [Weights and measures] (in Dutch). Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde (Flemish Association for Family History). 2011. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
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  50. ↑ "Les anciennes unités et leurs équivalences" [Old units and their equivalences] (in French). Le Cybergroupe Généalogique de Charente Poitevine. 2011. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
  51. 1 2 3 4 5 Guilhiermoz, P (1913). "De l'équivalence des anciennes mesures. A propos d'une publication récente" [Values of ancient measures quoted in recent publications]. Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes (in French). 74: 267–328. doi:10.3406/bec.1913.448498.
  52. ↑ halbo, leif (July 21, 2005). "Mål, vekt og norsk selvstendighet" [Dimensions, weight and Norwegian independence]. Aftenposten.
  53. ↑ [ citation needed ] – Information copied from pl:Stopa polska
  54. ↑ Tomasz Zakiewicz (April 2005). "The Cape Geodetic Standards and Their Impact on Africa" (PDF). FIG, Cairo. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2012. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
  55. ↑ "Scottish Weights and Measures: Distance and Area". Scottish Archive Network. Archived from the original on August 14, 2009. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  56. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved September 20, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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