What is the height in meters of a 5’4″ person?
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer:
A person who is 5 feet 4 inches tall is approximately 1.63 meters tall.
Explanation
Converting height from feet and inches to meters requires two key steps. First, the height in feet and inches must be expressed entirely in inches. Second, this value must be converted into meters using the standard conversion factor.
To begin, 5 feet equal 60 inches since each foot contains 12 inches. Adding the additional 4 inches results in a total of 64 inches. This is the complete height in inches.
The next step involves converting inches into meters. One inch is equivalent to 0.0254 meters. Multiplying the total inches by this conversion factor provides the height in meters:
64 inches × 0.0254 meters/inch = 1.6256 meters
Rounding this to two decimal places, the result is 1.63 meters, which is a common approximation used in both academic and everyday contexts.
Understanding this type of unit conversion is essential in fields such as health, sports, aviation, architecture, and international communication, where the metric system is widely adopted. While the imperial system is used in certain countries like the United States, most of the world relies on metric units. This makes it important to know how to translate measurements accurately between the two systems.
Such conversions also help standardize data across research studies and global databases. For example, in medical records or athletic competitions, height is often listed in meters for consistency, even when the original data might have been recorded in feet and inches. This ensures clarity and comparability of measurements worldwide.
Therefore, a person who is 5 feet 4 inches tall would measure approximately 1.63 meters in height, providing a precise and globally understandable metric equivalent.
