Oliver Smoot is retiring from his chairmanship of the American National Standards Institute. He lent his name -- and body -- to the "smoot" -- a unit of length, equal to his height (5 feet, 7 inches).

The real length of a normal pendulum is almost unattainable, so limited is our knowledge of the force of gravity on land and at sea, A more certain basis for a natural unit has been found in the ...

The Roman pes was a smidge shorter than our foot—it came in at around 11.6 inches—and similar Old English units based on the length of people’s feet were also a bit shorter than our 12-inch ...

Units of speed are always a unit of length per unit of time. Different units of length and time may be chosen depending on the situation. This makes it easier to read the measurements.

Japan’s traditional units of measurement for length and weight include the monme (3.75 grams), which has become an internationally recognized standard for weighing pearls.