What was the measurement of a foot based on

This process of national standardisation began in Scotland in and in England in , but many different regional standards had existed in both these countries long before. Some believe that the original measurement of the English foot was from King Henry I , who had a foot 12 inches long; he wished to standardise the unit of measurement in England.

This of course does not exclude the possibility that this old standard was redefined "calibrated" according to the ruler's foot. In fact, there is evidence that this sort of process was common at least in earlier ages. In other words, a new important ruler could try to impose a new standard for an existent unit, but it is unlikely that any king's foot was ever as long as the modern unit of measurement. The average foot length is about 9.

Approximately One attempt to "explain" the "missing" inches is that the measure did not refer to a naked foot, but to the length of footwear, which could theoretically add an inch or two to the naked foot's length. This is consistent with the measure being convenient for practical uses such as building sites. People almost always pace out lengths whilst wearing shoes or boots, rather than removing them and pacing barefoot.

There are however historical records of definitions of the inch based on the width not length of a man's thumb that are very precise for the standards of the time. One of these was based on an average calculated using three men of different size, thereby enabling surprising accuracy and uniformity throughout a country even without calibrated rulers.

Since this length was fairly close to the size of most feet, at least in shoes, this enabled the above-mentioned use of one's shoes in approximating lengths without measuring devices. This sort of imprecise measuring that in addition excessively multiplied the measuring error due to repeated use of a short "ruler" the foot was of course never used in surveying and in constructing more complicated buildings. Paleontology Wiki Explore. Wiki Content. Explore Wikis Community Central.

Register Don't have an account? Foot unit of length. View source. History Talk 0. Fan Feed 1 Foot unit of length 2 Gracile australopithecine 3 Quadruped. Universal Conquest Wiki. During the reign of Edward I, this somewhat vague measurement was refined to be the length of three grains of dry, round barley laid side by side. When barley was not available, 12 contiguous poppy seeds would also do nicely. Over time, as the length of a foot became standardized, the length of an inch became standardized in turn.

In , a gentleman named T. The Mendenhall Order formally adopted the international measurement standard of the meter and kilogram for measuring both length and mass. In , the National Bureau of Standards finally tackled troubling issues with minor measurement variations between countries.

While it would be some time yet before issues between the use of metric measurements and what is now called the U.

In place of the meter came the yard. In place of the kilogram came the pound. The inch developed when the yard was determined to measure 0. At first, an inch measured How long would it take before the United States landed upon the modern measurement of a precisely inch foot? According to one metric system historian , it would take four iterations of the inch before the foot itself became a solidly established unit of measurement.

Measurement has always been important. The first basic units of measure were by necessity body parts, which could be somewhat standardized based on gender. But the pressure to develop a working uniform or standardized system of measurement did not arise until the dawn of the modern age when Queen Elizabeth I introduced a new uniform yard measurement in Today a cubit is about 18 inches. Lick: A Lick was used by the Greeks to measure the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger.

Pace: The ancient Roman soldiers marched in paces, which were the length of a double step, about 5 feet; 1, paces was a mile. History Government U. Cities U. Updated February 21, Factmonster Staff.