Five feet and eight inches are the equivalent of 1.7272 metres. When converting, one metre is equal to 3.2808399 feet or one foot is equal to 0.3048 metres.
A metre, or meter in American English, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units. The metre unit was originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth’s equator to the North Pole at sea level. Throughout time, its definition has been periodically refined in accordance to the growing knowledge of the world and metrology. In 1983, the definition was refined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The first proposal recorded for a decimal-based unit of length was in 1668 by English philosopher John Wilkins. In 1675 Italian scientist Tito Luvio Burattini used the words ‘metro cattolico’ (catholic metre). In time this word gave rise to the French ‘metre’ that transferred into the English language.
A foot is a non-SI (International System) unit of length that is found in a number of different systems. These systems include English units, Imperial units and United States customary units. The specific size of the unit can vary from system to system but averages as a third of a metre, with three feet in a yard and 12 inches in a foot. In 1959, the length of the international yard in the United States of countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined a yard as 0.9144 metres. This meant that the international foot equalled 0.3048 metres. This definition made the foot measurement 2 ppm (parts per million) shorter than the previous US definition and 1.7 ppm longer than the previous British definition. Internationally, the standard symbol for a foot is ‘ft’ and is typically followed by a prime apostrophe, an inch is followed by a double prime, e.g. 1’2’’ is one foot two inches)
A metre, or meter in American English, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units. The metre unit was originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth’s equator to the North Pole at sea level. Throughout time, its definition has been periodically refined in accordance to the growing knowledge of the world and metrology. In 1983, the definition was refined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The first proposal recorded for a decimal-based unit of length was in 1668 by English philosopher John Wilkins. In 1675 Italian scientist Tito Luvio Burattini used the words ‘metro cattolico’ (catholic metre). In time this word gave rise to the French ‘metre’ that transferred into the English language.
A foot is a non-SI (International System) unit of length that is found in a number of different systems. These systems include English units, Imperial units and United States customary units. The specific size of the unit can vary from system to system but averages as a third of a metre, with three feet in a yard and 12 inches in a foot. In 1959, the length of the international yard in the United States of countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined a yard as 0.9144 metres. This meant that the international foot equalled 0.3048 metres. This definition made the foot measurement 2 ppm (parts per million) shorter than the previous US definition and 1.7 ppm longer than the previous British definition. Internationally, the standard symbol for a foot is ‘ft’ and is typically followed by a prime apostrophe, an inch is followed by a double prime, e.g. 1’2’’ is one foot two inches)
