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· 05 Jan 2022

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How Many Inches in a foot

There are twelve inches in one foot. The foot is a length unit widely used in several measurement systems. This unit has several definitions but the most common variant is the international one. It equals to 0.3048 meters. One foot has twelve inches, and three feet make up one yard.
The Inch (abbr. in, symbol”) is a length unit in many measurement systems. There are 12 inches in one foot and 36 inches in one yard.

History of Inch

One of the earliest definitions of the inch declares the length as being equal to three barleycorns. An inch is now the subdivision of 1/12 of a foot. Even so, the actual length of the inch has varied with the variance in the true length of the foot. It wasn’t until the 1959 yard and pound agreement when the world agreed to the exact length of the national yard being equal to 0.9144 meters, that the definition of the inch was equal to 2.54 centimeters.

Before the 1959 agreement, there were actually multiple definitions of the inch, and the exact length varied throughout the world. The U.S. was using a standard derived in 1893, defining the yard as being equal to 3600/3937 meters, or 0.914401828803658 meters. Britain, on the other hand, was using an 1824 definition of the yard as being equal to the length of a physical artifact.

Why are there 12 Inch in a Foot?

The early Romans subdivided the foot into 16 fingers and are credited with eventually dividing the foot into 12 inches. But why did they choose to divide the foot into 12 inches? The Romans used the duodecimal number system, which is a base-12 number system. They preferred to use halves and twelfths for subdivisions, and they used a notation system that used a dot, called an uncia, to indicate one-twelfth. The word uncia later became the source for the word inch that we use today. This is the origin of the inch.

In addition to a preference for the number 12 with the number system of the period, the length of a thumb from the first joint is about an inch. The length of the thumb tip offers a convenient and semi-consistent form of measure, and subdividing the foot into these smaller units makes logistical sense for the time period.

The number 12 also more factors than other numbers such as the number 10, which makes it easier to work with mathematically. This makes it easy to handle fractions like 2/3 and 3/4, which are difficult to handle in a base-10 number system. the reason why there are 12 in a foot.
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