3 ms·

Also the metre is a weird unit to use as a base. It is based on an incorrect 17th C estimation of the circumfrence of the earth and is now standardised as some

Also the metre is a weird unit to use as a base. It is based on an incorrect 17th C estimation of the circumfrence of the earth and is now standardised as some weird fraction of the distance light travels in a vacuum in a second (a second itself being based on a weird fraction of transitions in a stable form of Cesium atom) A foot is at least something very closely aligned across many cultures (from ancient Egypt to Japan) because of because of its clear and useful relationship to human scale and building products

perilunar 4y ago
> based on an incorrect 17th C estimation of the circumfrence of the earth Incorrect? It's pretty bloody close for 1793 — The error is less than 0.02% !
iggldiggl 4y ago
> A foot is at least something very closely aligned Hmm, the largest historic European foot listed on the corresponding Wikipedia page is almost 30 % larger than the smallest foot. So while they indeed all are somewhere roughly 30 cm-ish long, after a few feet those differences will still add up considerably…