How many Centimeters in Inch or Can Thumbelina Quit Marrying a Boy-with-a-finger?

Somehow before, I never had to think how many inches in one inch. Managed by the usual modern standards. But suddenly the granddaughter asked: "Granny, and who is more - Boy with a finger or Thumbelina? And if they were in the same tale, they could get married? ". I, of course, brushed aside her frivolous question, and then I still thought. And the truth, which of them is more? And in general - how many centimeters in an inch?

Only a few minutes stood out, I rummaged on the Internet. And I found 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 the Boy with a finger - just a little finger? And the baby was even a little bit smaller than a tiny girl? However, I remember, in Andersen's fairy tale it was told that the foster mother made her a crib from the shell of a walnut ... Something does not fit here!

Yeah, that's the right information! Inch, it turns out, is not the length of the thumb, but its width. That's the whole thing! And today it is accepted that an inch equals 2.54 centimeters. In another way, it turns out that the centimeter is 0.3937 inches. And an inch can be compared with a foot, also earlier such a measure of length was. So an inch is twelve feet from a foot. And if you multiply 2.54 cm and 12, we get the length of a foot. This will be 30.48 cm.

But incidentally, interesting information emerged that not every inch of centimeters was as long as it is considered today. After all, the width of the thumb - the size is quite relative, people are all different, and the fingers are all of different thicknesses. For the standard took an adult srednestaticheskogo man, and approximately derived this measure.

Only in every country in different years the inch had different magnitudes. For example, in Austro-Hungary, the so-called "Viennese inch" equals 2.63402780 cm. And "English" or "Imperial inch", of course, has its roots in foggy England. Well, guess how many centimeters in inch English?

Yeah, England broke all the records on the impermanence in this matter. Imagine, it turns out, since 1819 it was considered to be an inch of 2,54004380 cm. However, since 1895 standards have been replaced, they began to consider a measure of length equal to 2.53999780 cm. This continued until 1922. Then the inch slightly decreased, it began to enter about 2.53999560 cm. After 10 years, it again decreases to 2.5399951 cm. And by 1947 the inch was still smaller, now it is 2.5399931 cm. And only in 1958 This figure has become such as it is commonly believed to be ubiquitous - 2.54 cm. And more so long as it does not change in England.

Do you know how many centimeters in an inch in Germany? Here there is 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 a so-called decimal inch, which includes 2.9185920 cm. In Prussia, as from 1755, there is an ordinary inch, it corresponds to 2.61545 cm. In 1816 it became In the course of the decimal, equal to 3,766,250 cm. In Baden, since 1810, it has been assumed that in an inch 3 cm, and in the Rhine union it is equal to 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, in Mexico and in the Rio de la Plata, this measure of length has another name - pulgada. And if in Spain it contains 2,32166 cm, then in Mexico - 2,32780 cm. And in the Rio de la Plata 2,547 cm are included in the pulgada, that is, 1 inch.

The Chinese inch is called "tsun" 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.

It is interesting that in the province of Ostsee, there were three different measures of length, called inches: Riga - 2,240 cm, Courland - 3,360 cm, and Revel - at 2,67150 cm.

In Poland, Rzeczpospolita and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there were such measures of length: until 1819 - Old Polish, in another - the crown inch, which was about 2.48 cm; From 1819, until almost 1849, it was called Silesian, Wroclaw or Breslau, equaling 2.7420 cm. At the same time, an inch of Novopolskii was walking - 2.40 cm, and an Old Polish - about 2.70761 cm.

The American inch from 1866 equated 2.5400005080 cm, and in 1958 it became equal to 2.540 cm.

That is, nowhere did it exceed 3.3 cm. Consequently, Thumbelina was about this size - from 2.3 cm to 3.3 m. So who is higher? In this problem, there is one more missing data - we do not know whether the whole finger or only a part of it was chopped off by the grandmother in the fairy tale of the Boy-with-finger. If it's all, then Thumbelina will hardly reach his navel, and if the baby turned out from the phalanx alone, that's the best option! Then these fairy-tale characters will be almost the same height! And if they suddenly get attracted to each other, they can quite make up a wonderful married couple.