During the Bronze Age, most of the cities of the Indus used a foot that was approximately The typical Roman foot was approximately Initially, the Romans divided their foot into 16 figures, but later divided it into 12 ounces which in English means ounce or inch.
Jacob Koebel described the process of verifying a foot during the 16th century. July , an international pounding and construction site agreement, defined the international foot equivalent to 12 inches which were 1. In the United States, a inch foot was estimated with an inch defined by the order Mendenhall which indicated that a meter is equal to But why use 12 instead of 10?
Therefore, the combination of the day of the hour 10 and the hour 2 for the twilight is equivalent to the hours of night and day. There are numerous speculations as to why they counted with the base of twelve and not with 10 and this has influenced different cultures over time. In the United States, a foot was estimated to be 12 inches with an inch defined by the Mendenhall order which stated that one meter is equal to But why use 12 instead of 10?
Historically not every nation had a hour clock; in fact, the Egyptians were the only ones with a 12 hours for nighttime, 2 hours for twilight and 10 hours representing daytime. Therefore combining the 10 hour day and 2 hours for twilight equals 12 hours of night and day. There are numerous speculations as to why they counted with the base of twelve and not 10 and this influenced different cultures over time.
One of the schools of thoughts stipulates that our fingers have three joints and if you count the joints using our thumbs, we have twelve joints in both hands and this is how they counted. The Babylonians developed a counting system known as the Sexagesimal system with a base of The Sexagesimal system is used in counting time, and it has 12 factors. Every participant in international trade needed to be "singing off the same sheet of music," so to speak when negotiating terms.
At first, however, the United States elected to use the French-based metric system as its form of measurement. With some very slight variance, this metric system was still based on the British now UK yard established by Queen Elizabeth I.
Interestingly, unlike the imperial measurement system, the metric system was developed largely by scientists rather than monarchs measuring their own feet! To this day, the metric system still reigns supreme in many industries within the United States - most notably, the aeronautics and space industry.
This is particularly important since outside of the United States, most the rest of the world continues to use the metric system for a universal system of measurement. Only Liberia and Myanmar have in the past also opted out of using the metric system.
For many years, Myanmar used its own traditional measurement system that is shared by no other country in the world. Liberia, in contrast, followed the U. Today, both countries are slowly evolving to use the metric system along with the rest of the world. With the United States using a different system of measurement than the rest of the world, the importance of developing a consistent metric-to-U. Yet in fact, as recently as , the United States legislated use of the metric system as the official measurement system for all federal agencies in trade and industry.
Therefore people did what people do best and improvised with what they had available to them. The Foot Origin and History The origin of feet size as a standard unit of measurement can be found in just about every culture, although the precise length of the average foot has varied from 12 to 16 inches over the centuries.
The Inch Origin and History Similarly, in England , the very first inch was set to be the width of a grown man's thumb. This represented the first clear departure from the British imperial order of measurement. From Metric to Modern At first, however, the United States elected to use the French-based metric system as its form of measurement. This leaves only the United States still standing apart with its own unique measurement system.
Metric to U. Standard Conversion With the United States using a different system of measurement than the rest of the world, the importance of developing a consistent metric-to-U. Join The Discussion.
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