this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
215 points (95.4% liked)

NonCredibleDefense

4017 readers
1179 users here now

Rules:

  1. Posts must abide by lemmy.world terms and conditions
  2. No spam or soliciting for money.
  3. No racism or other bigotry allowed.
  4. Obviously nothing illegal.

If you see these please report them.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Both, nautical mile and metre are derived from earth's dimensions: One nautical mile is an arc ~~second~~ minute at the equator, i.e. its circumference is 360·60 NM = 21,600 NM. One metre originally was 1/40,000,000 of the circumference through the poles (or 1/10,000,000 of the distance from a pole to the equator).

Edit: Forgot three zeros in the definition of a metre.