Metric system?

Also the top contributor is wrong !

In the early fifties the Inch in the British Commonwealth differed from the Inch as defined by the USA Standards. Already then the greater number of industrialized nations have adopted the international metric system. So to avoid the bad situation where two great nations being in the minority of rejecting the metric system having even different units of length that differ by more than 10 ppm, they sat together and based the new international Inch on the metric system. In 1957 it was decided that an Inch is 0.0254000 meters.(=25.4000 mm)

(Except the US-surveyor inch which has still an odd value)

So the exact value of one meter is 1 inch / 0.0254000

Note: The statement "1 inch actually = 2.53999996cm" is wrong. You may have a look at NIST:

http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/appenB8.html

where the values shown in bold are exact values (not rounded)

Some top contributors seem to know it better - like this you may block the process of learning. It's a pity.

Well, as 1 metre = 100cm and 2.54 cm = 1", then,

100/2.54 = 39.37007874015" = 1m ...Yes, rounded up to 39.37".

(Rounded up to 1 decimal place = 39.4")

(1 inch actually = 2.53999996cm. Rounded up to 2.54cm/inch)

(Whoever you are Mr Thumbs Down, go away and annoy someone else. Just about everyone has given the acceptable answer, do you know better ?)

(And, I've been fully conversant with US, UK and Metric systems for over 50 years).

The U. S. Congress legalized the use of the metric system in 1866 on the basis that one meter is exactly equal to 39.37 inches

The actual length of a metre is

39.3700787 inches to one metre.

a meter is defined as the length equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton 86 atom. or there is a meter stick in a hyperbolic chamber in france against which all meters are measured, this was defined by the NIST. Meters are part of the metric system, you cant really compare them to the english system of measure that the US uses, you can convert them as you have in your question. It actually continues further than what you have 1 meter=39.3700787...in.

39.37007874 inches

but 0.00007874 is so small you couldn't measure it and anyway the metric system is based on real world measurements, not the arbitrary length of an ancient kings feet.

I believe that the metric meter is now calculated using the speed of light..(from engineering tutors at work!)...

The m to inch you have has been rounded up

1m = 3.2808ft (39.3696inch's)

1 meter = 39.370 078 74 inch

39.370inch/meter is ''good enough''. A sheet of bond paper is .004'' thick. For anything that most people would need to measure, greater precision than this is not necessary.