In body based units of measurement at interesting thing of the day i listed a few such historical units of measure which can still come in handy for rough approximations if you dont have a ruler or tape. This is a list of units of measure based on human body parts or the attributes or abilities of humans.
How Many Scruples In A Dram 8 Historical Measurements
Fathom in human body measurement. Unless i have very short arms paul. Starting at birth more than half of your body weight is composed of water. As part of this activity students visit the powerplay exhibit at the childrens museum of houston. Units of measure based on the human body or attributesabilities of a human eg. If you stretch out your arms to either side of your body as far as theyll go the distance between the tips of your middle fingers will be very close to your height or about six feetyour own feet that isa length also known as a fathom. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric.
Like many seemingly odd units of measurement the fathom was originally linked to a measurement on the human body in this case the outstretched arms of an adult male. Rod unless they are also human based eg. Inchthis does not include units further derived from these units eg. Small point but shouldnt the definition of a fathom be the length of the outstretched arms ie. Students practice estimating and measuring in metric units and investigate the concepts of ratio and proportion as they relate to features of the human body. High precision body temperature measurement algorithm intelligent dual lights thermal imager for human body temperature measuring the dual light body temperature measurement instrument adopts facial recognition ireo dual sensor for non contact temperature measurement with features of high temperature alarm and face detection while avoiding cross infection.
It is אטה in hebrew pronounced am mah which can be interpreted the mother of the arm or the origin that is the forearmcubitselected biblical references for the cubit include these five rather well known selections1 and god said to noah i have determined to make an end of all flesh. Though the actual average percentages of water in the human body vary by gender age and weight one thing is consistent. Robin capper on january 21 2009 453 am. Of course the ultimate body part as measurement tool is the smoot as seen in google earth. A fathom is a unit of measurement which most often appears in the context of nautical depths. Before we had precise standardized units of measure such as meters and feet lengths and even ocasionally volumes were reckoned based on the average dimensions of human body parts.
The cubit was a basic unit in early israel and the surrounding near east countries. Fingertip to fingertip not outstretched arm. It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human based.