this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
494 points (97.0% liked)
Lifehacks
209 readers
5 users here now
Efficiency in all walks of life.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, but does the kilometer have a cool origin like the mile? Checkmate math nerd.
I'd say it kind of does actually:
The Kilometer is defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's North Pole to the equator along the meridian passing through Paris.
Vs
The mile originated with the Roman measurement of mille passus, meaning "one thousand paces," with a pace being five Roman feet. The modern 5,280-foot statute mile evolved in England, where the 1592 parliamentary act defined the mile as eight furlongs (660 feet each) to standardize the distance.
One is measured by earth, the other by stinky feet.
Yeah but earth is wobbly and imprecise so now we define the meter as "the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second"
That'a a cool definition. I wouldn't call it an origin though, that would still be the Earth measurement through Paris, which is also cool.
On ten-thousandth. The circumference through the poles is ~40,000km
over land or straight line?