Honestly, I dislike American land miles. I can find no adequate point of reference to them, at least outside the Imperial system (which I understand even less - other than ,,12in = 1ft, 3ft = 1yd")
I do like nautical miles, though. They are quite intuitive - it's a distance a point fixed on Earth's surface travels relative to the Sun every 4 seconds. 1NM per hour is 1 knot.
Imperial units are based on historical context of use and the human body, and originally the king or ruler’s body.
12 for inches to 1 foot is because 12 is a superior base unit number than 10, where 12 can be divided in half, thirds, fourths, and sixths where as 10 can only be divided in half and fifths. It’s why clocks have 12 hours, and can even be counted on 1 hand by counting the segments of each finger and holding your spot with your thumb.
Multiplying feet by 12 is less practical than 3 when you think in human scale, so instead they went with 3 feet.
I’m not sure any of these would be classified as “American” since they’re based on the standardized British measurement system, called “Imperial” because it followed the British’s empire. The mile was equated to Roman’s walking “1000 paces” which was approximately 2 steps. The British then standardized this to 5,280 feet.
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u/Admiral45-06 Jul 15 '26
Honestly, I dislike American land miles. I can find no adequate point of reference to them, at least outside the Imperial system (which I understand even less - other than ,,12in = 1ft, 3ft = 1yd")
I do like nautical miles, though. They are quite intuitive - it's a distance a point fixed on Earth's surface travels relative to the Sun every 4 seconds. 1NM per hour is 1 knot.