Throughout my searching the web I’ve noticed a rather strange discrepancy when it comes to height. Every converter that I have used to convert from cm to feet or vice-versa has given me the same result, but actual people haven’t.
Going to a website such as this: http://www.answers.com/topic/human-height or this: http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Human_height
gives out the height in feet and in cm’s, but if the height in cm is put through a converter, it is not the same as listed on the website. I know that this could be a simple miscalculation, but I’ve noticed it with other websites and my own personal knowledge of the heights of friends and family which, according to a converter, are completely off. To me, 175 cm has always been a lot taller than 5’7 so am I in error here or is there something weird going on? Has anyone else come across this?
There’s no discrepancy in that chart, but self-reported heights are often wrong – people exaggerate, they convert incorrectly, they round off, etc.
Can you point to a specific discrepancy in the charts? They look about right to me. You mention 5’7" and 175cm, but does it say somewhere that they are equal?
The conversion is 2.54 cm= 1 inch; however, the discrepancies noted on the websites are most likely due to rounding off errors since the values are most likely reported in cm and then rounded off to the nearest inch. Note that no heights expressed in inches were fractional whereas the metric values were to one decimal place.
I can point it out. If you go to the very first website and look at the height of males in Germany you will notice that in centimeters it is 180.2, however when I plug that value into a converter and attempt to convert to feet I do not get 5’11 (which is what the website claims), but I get 5’9 (feet). I suppose that rounding off errors would explain it, but it just seemed a little large so I couldn’t dismiss it as a rounding error.
When I convert 180.2 cm to ft. and in. I get 5’ 10.944’
180.2/2.54*12 = 5.912 ft. 0.912’ = 10.944"
That’s 5’ 11’ rounded to the nearest inch.
Are you confusing “5.9 feet” with “5 feet, 9 inches”? Because 5’9" is 5.75 feet.
I think I get your point, but your math seems totally out of wack.
FWIW, my drivers licence says that I’m 174 cm, and I’m somewhat taller than 5’7" (about 5’8" and change, I think). I know this because I participate in an osteoperosis study yearly, so my height is a matter of public record. (174 is the official measurement, but I’m just above the 5’8" mark on the Imperial side of the measuring dohickie.)
I have no idea if this post is useful or not.
174 cm = 68.50 inches = 5’-8.5"
Yeah. I wonder if the OP missed that inches are base 12.
From the first link, here are the first heights given with my conversions (using MegaConverter):
180.2 cm 5'11" 70.94" = 5' 10.94"
165.6 cm 5'5" 65.19685" = 5' 5.2"
182.5 cm 6'0" 71.85039" = 5' 11.85"
177.0 cm 5'9" to 5'10" 69.68504" = 5' 9.69"
175.5 cm 5'9" 69.09449" = 5' 9.09"
The two left hand columns are from the web site, the two right hand columns are the conversions. They look close to me.
I WAS confused. I didn’t actually realize that I had to convert the digits after the decimal place to inches and that there was a difference between 5.9 feet and five feet and nine inches. :smack:
Thank you for your help everyone. I’ve always done metric and now, thanks to you, I won’t be as ignorant when it comes to the imperial system.
It would sure be easier if only one foot were 10 inches instead of 12, and better yet if we used metric.
Er, how is it that my math is out of whack? A foot is 12 inches. 9 inches is 3/4 of a foot, which is written as .75 ft. So 5 feet, 9 inches is 5.75 feet.