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Centimetre
 
 
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A centimetre (American spelling
American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
 of length
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
 in the metric system
Metric system

The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
, equal to one hundredth of a metre
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
, which is the current SI
International System of Units

The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system devised around the convenience of the number ten....
 base unit
SI base unit

The International System of Units defines seven dimensional analysis SI base units. All other physical units can be derived from these base units: these are known as SI derived units....
 of length. Centi is the SI prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
 for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as (engineering notation
Engineering notation

Engineering notation is a version of scientific notation in which the exponent of ten must be a multiple of three . As an alternative to writing powers of 10, SI prefixes can be used, which also usually provide steps of a factor of a thousand....
) or (scientific E notation
Scientific notation

Scientific notation, also known as standard form or as exponential notation, is a way of writing numbers that accommodates values too large or small to be conveniently written in standard decimal notation....
) — meaning or respectively,centimetre-gram-second system of units.

Though for many physical quantities, SI prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
es for factors of 103—like milli- and kilo-—are often preferred by technicians, the centimetre remains a practical unit of length for many everyday measurements.






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Carpentersrule
A centimetre (American spelling
American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
 of length
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
 in the metric system
Metric system

The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
, equal to one hundredth of a metre
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
, which is the current SI
International System of Units

The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system devised around the convenience of the number ten....
 base unit
SI base unit

The International System of Units defines seven dimensional analysis SI base units. All other physical units can be derived from these base units: these are known as SI derived units....
 of length. Centi is the SI prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
 for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as (engineering notation
Engineering notation

Engineering notation is a version of scientific notation in which the exponent of ten must be a multiple of three . As an alternative to writing powers of 10, SI prefixes can be used, which also usually provide steps of a factor of a thousand....
) or (scientific E notation
Scientific notation

Scientific notation, also known as standard form or as exponential notation, is a way of writing numbers that accommodates values too large or small to be conveniently written in standard decimal notation....
) — meaning or respectively,centimetre-gram-second system of units.

Though for many physical quantities, SI prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
es for factors of 103—like milli- and kilo-—are often preferred by technicians, the centimetre remains a practical unit of length for many everyday measurements. A centimetre is approximately the width of the fingernail of an adult person.

Equivalence to other units of length

1 centimetre is equal
Equal

Equal commonly refers to a state of equality.Equal or equals may also refer to:* Equal , a brand of artificial sweetener* EQUAL Community Initiative, an initiative within the European Social Fund of the European Union...
 to:
  • 0.01 metre, which can be represented by 1.00 E-2 m
    1 E-2 m

    Image:Length one to ten scale.svg|110px|right|Click on the top for smaller lengths and on the bottom for larger lengthspoly 0 0 20 20 0 20 1 millimetre...
     (1 metre is equal to 100 centimetres)
  • about 0.393700787401575 inch
    Inch

    An inch is the name of a Units of measurement of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units....
     (1 inch is equal to 2.54 centimetres)
1 cubic centimetre is equal to 1 millilitre
Litre

The litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is often written as a cursive l to avoid confusion with the number 1 in antiqua fonts....
, under the current SI
Si

Si, si, or SI may refer to :...
 system of units.

Uses of centimetre

In addition to its use in the measurement of length
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
, the centimetre is used:
  • sometimes, to report the level of rainfall as measured by a rain gauge
    Rain gauge

    A rain gauge is a type of instrument used by Meteorology and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of liquid precipitation over a set period of time....
     
  • in the CGS system, the centimetre is used to measure capacitance
    Capacitance

    In electromagnetism and electronics, capacitance is the ability of a body to hold an electrical charge.Capacitance is also a measure of the amount of electric charge stored for a given electric potential....
    , where 1 cm of capacitance = 1.113×10 Farad
    Farad

    The farad is the SI unit of capacitance. The farad is named after the British physicist Michael Faraday....
     
  • in maps, centimetres are used to make conversions from map scale to real world scale (kilometres)


Unicode symbols

For the purposes of compatibility with Chinese
Chinese language

Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....
, Japanese
Japanese language

IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
 and Korea
Korea

Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries, a civilization, and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia....
n (CJK
CJK

CJK is a collective term for Chinese language, Japanese language, and Korean language, which constitute the main East Asian languages. The term is used in the field of software and communications internationalization....
) characters, Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
 has symbols for:
  • centimetre - code 339D
  • square centimetre - code 33A0
  • cubic centimetre - code 33A4


They are only useful with East Asian fixed-width CJK
CJK

CJK is a collective term for Chinese language, Japanese language, and Korean language, which constitute the main East Asian languages. The term is used in the field of software and communications internationalization....
 fonts, because they are equal in size to one Chinese character.

See also

  • 1 E-2 m
    1 E-2 m

    Image:Length one to ten scale.svg|110px|right|Click on the top for smaller lengths and on the bottom for larger lengthspoly 0 0 20 20 0 20 1 millimetre...
  • SI
    Si

    Si, si, or SI may refer to :...
  • SI prefix
    SI prefix

    An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
  • Metric system
    Metric system

    The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
  • Orders of magnitude (length)
    Orders of magnitude (length)

    To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following list describes various lengths between 1.6 m and 1.3 m.|}Detailed List...
  • Conversion of units
    Conversion of units

    Conversion of units refers to conversion factors between different units of measurement for the same quantity....
    , for comparison with other units of length