Somehow before, I never had to think about how many centimeters are in one inch. Bypassed by ordinary modern standards. But then the granddaughter suddenly asked: “Granny, and who is bigger - Boy with a finger or Thumbelina?” And if they got into one fairy tale, could they get married? ” Of course, I dismissed her frivolous question, and then still thought about it. Is it true which of them is bigger? And in general - how many centimeters in an inch?
As soon as a free minute stood out, I began to rummage through the Internet. And dug a lot of interesting things! It turns out that the word "inch" came to us from the Netherlands. It means nothing more than a thumb. So, then, Thumbelina was the size of a thumb, and Boy-and-finger - just the little finger? And the baby was even a little smaller than a tiny girl? However, I remember that in Andersen's tale it was said that the adoptive mother made her a bed from the walnut shell ... Something does not fit here!
Yeah, here is the information you need! An inch, it turns out, is not called the length of the thumb, but its width. That's the whole hassle! And today it is generally accepted that an inch is 2.54 centimeters. In another way, it turns out that the centimeter is 0.3937 from an inch. And another inch can be compared with a foot, also before such a measure of length was. So an inch is a twelfth of a foot. And if you multiply 2.54 cm and 12, we get the foot length. It will be 30.48 cm.
But along the way, interesting information crawled out that it was not always in inches centimeters as many as it is commonly believed today. After all, the width of the thumb is a relative amount, people are all different, and fingers have different thicknesses. For reference, an adult srednestatichesky man was taken, and this measure was approximately taken.
Only in each country in different years did an inch have different sizes. For example, in Austria-Hungary the so-called "Vienna inch" is 2.63402780 cm. And the "English" or "imperial inch", of course, has its roots in foggy England. Well, guess how many centimeters in an inch of English?
Yeah, England broke all the inconstancy records in this matter. Imagine, it turns out that since 1819 it was customary to consider an inch equal to 2.54004380 cm. However, already from 1895 the standards changed, they began to consider a measure of length equal to 2.53999780 cm. This continued until 1922. Then the inch decreased slightly, it began to enter about 2.53999560 cm. After 10 years, it again decreases to 2.5399951 cm. And by 1947 the inch became smaller, now it is 2.5399931 cm. And only in 1958 this figure has become what it is commonly believed to be - 2.54 cm. And more so far she has not changed in England.
Do you know how many centimeters an inch in Germany? There is a complete confusion, an inch in different parts of the country is different. For example, in Bavaria it corresponds to 2, 432160 cm. But there is also the so-called decimal inch, which includes 2.9185920 cm. In Prussia, there has also been an ordinary inch since 1755, it corresponds to 2.61545 cm. In 1816 it became in decimal, equal to 3,766,250 cm. In Baden since 1810 it is considered to be 3 inches in inches, and in the Rhine Union it is 2,61541 cm. In Saxony, it includes 2,360 cm.
And how many centimeters in an inch in Quebec? As much as in French - 2,7070050 cm, and it was adopted in Quebec since 1985.
In Spain, Mexico and the Rio de La Plata, this measure of length is another name - pulgada. And if in Spain it contains 2.32166 cm, then in Mexico - 2.32780 cm. And in Rio de La Plata, 2.547 cm are included in pulgada, that is, in 1 inch.
The Chinese inch is called “cun” and is equal to a third of a decimeter, that is, about 3.333333 cm. Japanese is called “sun”, it is slightly smaller than Chinese and is 3.0 cm.
An interesting fact is that in Ostsee province there were immediately three different measures of length, called inches: Riga - 2.240 cm, Courland - 3.360 cm, and Revel - 2.67150 cm.
In Poland, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there were such measures of length: until 1819 - old Poland, in another way - a crown inch, which was approximately 2.48 cm; from 1819 until almost 1849 it was called Silesian, Wroclaw or Breslav, equal to 2.7420 cm.At the same time, an inch went Novopolsky - 2.40 cm, and Starolitovsky - about 2.070761 cm.
The American inch since 1866 was equal to 2.5400005080 cm, and in 1958 it began to equal 2.540 cm.
That is, nowhere did he exceed 3.3 cm. Consequently, the Thumbelina was about such growth - from 2.3 cm to 3.3 m. So who is taller? There is one more thing missing in this task - we don’t know whether the grandmother chopped off the whole finger or only part of it in a fairy tale about the Boy-s-finger. If it’s all, then Thumbelina will hardly reach his navel, and if the baby is made out of only one phalanx - this is the best option! Then these fairy-tale characters will be almost the same height! And if they suddenly attracted each other, then they may well make up a wonderful married couple.