How many kilometers in a mile?This issue is still 250-300 years ago, I would have put an impasse is not only an experienced traveler, but also a scientist.At one mile?And what a kilometer?
word "mile" is derived from the Roman milia passum, that is one thousand paces.The Romans designated as a distance of a thousand double steps legionary.The need to measure the length, and not only expensive, but also individual subjects was always in humans.Distance tied to an arrow's flight, and by day's march, and even to the tubes - that is, until you go, smoke a certain number of tubes.
The most popular names used measures of length, associated with the name of the body.This, for example, lokot- 0.5 meter span - about 20 cm, foot - about 30 cm. The latter translates to English as "a step the foot."Obviously, such a system is quite inconvenient.After all, his feet and hands, and moves all the people of different lengths.
By the end of the nineteenth century in Europe, there were more than forty different miles to measure distance on land.The answer to the question of how many kilometers per mile, highly varied, even in countries in the neighborhood.
Roman mile, according to various sources, amounted to 1483 or 1598 meters.In the neighboring England and Scotland were different mile.English was shorter, it numbered 1609 meters, in the Scottish - 1808 m. Much longer was a German mile - 7420 meters.A similar situation was in Russia.Here the land measures mile length was rarely used, it was used mainly to solve the problems of the metric.Russian mile consisted of seven miles, and it was 7468 meters.
But all the records length pelted mile Scandinavia.Swedish mile length was 10688 meters, and the title of the longest could claim Norwegian - it was 11298 m.
Of course, this situation does not suit many people.And in 1875 in Paris XVII countries signed the Metre Convention, to which later joined by the other states.It came into use meters, kilometers, kilograms.Who decimal metric system shared by all economically developed countries.At the present time to answer the question: "How many kilometers in one mile?"easier despite the fact that the miles out from use.It is easy to solve the inverse problem.For example, we read that the facilities shared 1 mile.How many kilometers have striding traveler?The exact answer is.How many kilometers per mile - is now known exactly.Land mile is 1,608 km, and the sea - 1,853 km.
With all nm was initially a little bit easier.After all, the sea can not be measured steps away.Mariners to answer the question about how many kilometers per mile, had to rely on astronomical calculations.Seamount conditionally equal to one minute of latitude, or 1853 meters, that is, if the ship sails along the meridian of one nautical mile, its location will change exactly one minute of latitude.
True, there is a small catch.Our Earth - it's not exactly a ball, it is flattened at the poles.And it turns out that at the equator the distance separating one minute of latitude on the other, a little bit more.Therefore, there is another unit of measurement of distance - the equatorial nautical mile.It is 1855 meters.
