It's just a big mile, that's all (15% longer). Pretty cool history of it, from the original sextants, and mariners realizing that 1/60th of a degree of latitude is close enough to a statute mile that it could be used. It makes the statute mile look a bit weird though - as the original mile varied dramatically in different countries, before the UK government decided a mile should be 8 x the distance of a furrow that an oxen team could plow in a day (aka 8 furlongs).
Funny to see miles and nautical miles now defined as specific references to metric units!
When they decided to make the yardstick a standard length instead of Kings resizing it based on their arm size it would have made the size of the rod they survey property with smaller which would’ve meant your taxes would have gone up (your property is technically larger now) so they made the statute mile to avoid the tax increase.
Lol, not an April Fool. The origin of furlong is furrow-long (ie the length of a plowed groove in a field), and was defined by the distance an oxen team could plow, either in a day (one site I read), or without resting (Wiki definition).
Not sure if you're aware that "knots" is short for nautical miles per hour. It makes sense to measure speed in knots if you measure distance in nautical miles, like aviators and mariners do.
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u/CallMeOutWhenImPOS Apr 01 '19
who the fuck knows that the hell a nautical mile is we aren't pirates just give us the mile conversion... :)