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Metre-stick. A metrestick divided into 1,000 mm and labeled with 100 cm. A metre-stick, metrestick (or meter-stick and meterstick as alternative spellings); [1] or yardstick[2] is either a straightedge or foldable ruler used to measure length, and is especially common in the construction industry. They are often made of wood or plastic, and ...
The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1 299 792 458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium.
Archaeologists consider that this 51.85 cm long unit was the origin of the Roman foot. Indeed, the Egyptians divided the Sumerian cubit into 28 fingers and 16 of these fingers gave a Roman foot of 29.633 cm. [5] [6] [7] The Roman foot was divided into 4 palms, 12 inches or 16 fingers. A Roman cubit was equivalent to 1.5 feet, a pace to 5 feet.
Longer rulers, e.g., 46 cm (18 in), are necessary in some cases. Rigid wooden or plastic yardsticks, 1 yard long, and meter sticks, 1 meter long, are also used. Classically, long measuring rods were used for larger projects, now superseded by the tape measure, the surveyor's wheel or laser rangefinders.
Detail of a cubit rod in the Museo Egizio of Turin 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 ...
Egyptian units of length are attested from the Early Dynastic Period.Although it dates to the 5th dynasty, the Palermo stone recorded the level of the Nile River during the reign of the Early Dynastic pharaoh Djer, when the height of the Nile was recorded as 6 cubits and 1 palm [1] (about 3.217 m or 10 ft 6.7 in).
A royal cubit (gaz-i shāhī) appeared in the 17th century with 95 cm (37 + 1 ⁄ 2 in), while a "shortened" cubit (gaz-i mukassar) of 6.8 cm (2 + 11 ⁄ 16 in) (likely derived from the widely used cloth cubit of Aleppo) was used for cloth. [27] The measure survived into the 20th century, with 1 gaz equal to 104 cm (41 in). [27]
0.3048 m. 30.48 cm. 304.8 mm. The foot (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 commonly used to represent the foot. [3] In both customary and imperial units, one foot comprises 12 inches, and one yard comprises three feet.