Metre

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The bar, made of Platinum and Iridium that defined the length of a metre
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The bar, made of Platinum and Iridium that defined the length of a metre

A metre (US spelling, meter) is the basic unit of length in the SI measurement system. According to the earliest definition (dating to the French Revolution), it was 1/10,000,000th (one ten-millionth) of the distance between the Earth's equator and the North Pole along the Paris meridian. The metre is now officially defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second.

In the Imperial system of measurement, one metre is equal to about 39.37 inches, 3.28 feet, or about 1.09 yards.

[edit] Units based on the metre

  • 1 km (kilometer) = 1000 m
  • 100 cm (centimetres) = 1 m
  • 1000 mm (millimetres) = 1 m
  • 1,000,000,000 nm (nanometres) = 1 m


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