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The geographical mile is an international unit of length determined by 1 minute of arc ( 1 / 60 degree) along the Earth's equator.For the international ellipsoid 1924 this equalled 1855.4 metres. [1]
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 length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards.
Richardson had believed, based on Euclidean geometry, that a coastline would approach a fixed length, as do similar estimations of regular geometric figures. For example, the perimeter of a regular polygon inscribed in a circle approaches the circumference with increasing numbers of sides (and decrease in the length of one side).
As one degree is 1 / 360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1 / 21600 of a circle – such that the polar circumference of the Earth would be exactly 21,600 miles. Gunter used Snellius's circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude. [24]
Historically a nautical mile was defined as the length of one minute of arc along a meridian of a spherical earth. An ellipsoid model leads to a variation of the nautical mile with latitude. This was resolved by defining the nautical mile to be exactly 1,852 metres.
A unit of length refers to any arbitrarily chosen and accepted reference standard for ... furlong = 1 ⁄ 8 mile (201.168 m) horse length ≈ 8 feet (2.4 m ...
Earth radius (denoted as R 🜨 or R E) is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on or near its surface. Approximating the figure of Earth by an Earth spheroid (an oblate ellipsoid), the radius ranges from a maximum (equatorial radius, denoted a) of nearly 6,378 km (3,963 mi) to a minimum (polar radius, denoted b) of nearly 6,357 km (3,950 mi).
Energy and momentum are interpreted as components of the four-momentum vector, and mass is the magnitude of this vector, so in geometric units these must all have the dimension of length. We can convert a mass expressed in kilograms to the equivalent mass expressed in metres by multiplying by the conversion factor G / c 2 .