Length/Distance 

Convert from twain to X unit

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Unit Definition (twain)
The twain is an old word for the number two, derived from the Anglo-Saxon twegen. The American author Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), who had been a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi in his youth, took his literary name from a traditional riverboat phrase "mark twain", meaning "exactly two" fathoms of water. This was the minimum depth needed for the boats to operate safely without running aground.

Unit Definition (X unit)
The X-unit (symbol xu) is a unit of length formerly used to measure the wavelength of X-rays and gamma rays. The X-unit is approximately 1.0021×10-13 metre. Defined by the Swedish physicist Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn (1886-1978) in 1925, the X-unit could not at that time be measured directly; the definition was instead made in terms of the spacing between planes of the calcite crystals used in the measuring apparatus.


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