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Length/Distance | Convert from ell [Scotland] to astronomical unit |
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Common Length Conversions Metric Length Conversions Unit Definition (ell [Scotland]) See the English El (or Ell). This Scottish length is shorter than the English El. It may reflect an old practice of cloth merchants in giving an extra inch with each yard, to allow for any irregular cutting at the ends of the piece. However, the English cloth ell is definitely longer than the yard; it seems to be the distance from the shoulder to the fingers of the opposite hand. This reflects a practice of cloth merchants of holding the cloth at the shoulder with one hand and pulling the piece through with the opposite hand. This cloth ell was used with a similar length in France, where it was called the aune. The Dutch el and German elle are a little more than half the English ell; they may represent "arm's-length" units like the Italian braccio, the Russian sadzhen, and the Turkish pik Unit Definition (astronomical unit) An Astronomical Unit is approximately the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is a derived constant and used to indicate distances within the solar system. Its formal definition is the radius of an unperturbed circular orbit a massless body would revolve about the sun in 2*(pi)/k days (i.e., 365.2568983.... days), where k is defined as the Gaussian constant exactly equal to 0.01720209895. Since an AU is based on radius of a circular orbit, one AU is actually slightly less than the average distance between the Earth and the Sun (approximately 150 million km or 93 million miles).
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