Convert inch to meter

Symbol

The inch is represented by the letters in or a double straight quotation mark (“). For example, 5 inches is written as 5 in or 5”. 

Description

Inch is one of the smaller units of length measurement in the British imperial and the United States customary system of measurement. This estimation is thought to have derived from the width of the human thumb. The word ‘inch’ was derived from the Roman word "uncia" (twelfth).

In the past, there have been multiple standards regarding the exact measurement of an inch. However, with the adoption of the international yard during the 1950s and 1960s, the inch has been based on the metric system and defined as exactly 25.4 mm.

So it is quite easy to convert centimeter to inch or in to cm. According to the international scales, there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch. So inversely, an inch is equivalent to 1/2.54 centimeters.

For inch to foot conversion, note that one foot is equal to 12 inches. So, while doing ft to in conversion just divide the inch digits by 12 since an inch is equivalent to 1/12 feet. For in to yard conversion, an inch is equivalent to 1/36 yard.

History

Inch was used in the Textus Roffensis in 1120. It is the only surviving manuscript from the Laws of Æthelberht (which dates to the early 7th century). It is the earliest known reference to the inch in England. 

King Edward II of England proclaimed in 1324 that one inch was equivalent to three barley grains put end to end lengthwise. But as the barley grains' size could not be fixed, there was a possibility of having error in standardizing inch by this defintion. Actually before the establishment of the international yard and pound, numerous definitions were used for inch.

In 1912, US and UK followed different definitions of inch measurement. Carl Edvard Johansson then reached a compromise. He produced gauge blocks with a nominal size of 25.4 mm that were accurate to within a few parts per million of both official standards. Because of the popularity of Johansson's blocks, several countries began using 25.4 mm as the inch between 1930 and 1964. It became known as the industrial inch. And this has since become the new official measurement of the inch. 

Use

Inch is mostly used in countries following the FPS (foot-pound-second) system of units. It is sometimes used for measuring small dimensions such as mobile display or electronic parts. 

Symbol

The meter is represented by the symbol ‘m’.

Description

Meter is the base unit of length in the SI system (International System of Units). The term meter was originally derived from the Greek words "metreo" (verb form) and "metron" (noun form) meaning "measure”.

The length of the path that light takes in the vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds was the official definition of a meter from 1983 to 2019. As of 2019, the meter has been redefined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second where a caesium hyperfine transition frequency defines the second.

Hence, the difference between the old and new definitions of meter is the addition of the definition of the second. However, interestingly the definition of the meter fixes the speed of light in a vacuum to the exact value of 299,792,458 m/s. 

Meters can be changed to other SI units using prefix multipliers based on powers of ten. For example, a meter consists of 100 centimeters, and one thousand meters equals a kilometer.

To convert m to in (meter to inches), you will need to multiplu the meter by 39.37 since  a meter equals 39.37 inches. Let's talk about large unites and how meter looks in comparison to them. 1609 meters is equivalent to a statute mile. 

History

The French first used the unit meter in the late 1700s. On March 30, 1791, the French Academy of Sciences specified the length of a meter. 

However, it was officially defined in 1799. In 1983, the meter was defined as it is measured now. But in 2019, the addition of the definition of second was added to it to reducec uncertainity.

The English word 'metre' was first used at the beginning of 1797. It was first measured with an interferometer by Albert A. Michelson in 1893.

Use

Meter is used for length, height, width and thickness measurement of objects in countries that follow SI units. However, in the states it is not used commonly.