It's nearly coincidental that 1 cubic centimeter is almost exactly one milliliter. The liter (which predates the Metric System) is the volume of 1000 grams of water (grams also predating the Metric system). The cubic centimeter DOES come from the System, being that 1 centimeter is of course 1/100 of a meter. The meter was originally defined as one part in ten million of the distance from the equator to the North Pole (which incorrrectly assumed that the Earth is a perfect sphere) So, if your stride is 1 meter, it would take you 10,000,000 paces to reach the North Pole if you didn't need to climb any mountains or descend into any valleys, and you didn't drown, or get eaten by polar bears, etc. . . Milliliters is thus defined by properties of water, whereas cubic centimeters is defined from properties of our dear planet.
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 22:10:21 -0600 (GMT-06:00) From: Michael Carnes <michaelcarnes@earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Micron / micrometer To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Message-ID: <4064682.1148098221242.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hybrid.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
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Cubic centimeter/milliliter. It just never ends...
So if a micron and micrometer are the same thing, why the two names?
Puzzled...