• leftascenter@jlai.lu
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    2 days ago

    The nautical mile comes from the measure of 1 second of arc (°,mn,s) of longitude over the earth. Hence British nautical and French nautical mile conversion were slightly different as they were not defined at the same latitude.

    • keepthepace@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
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      22 hours ago

      I did not know their origin, that’s hilarious.

      That explains why the people who designed the meter found it logical for it to represent a portion of Earth’s circumference (1/10 000 000 of the equator-pole distance)