The modern mile is based on the 2000 year old Roman mile which was 1000 steps of each paw. The modern mile is 8% longer than the Roman mile, but we are very much tied to ancient Romans in units of measurement as well as everything else.

By analyzing video, lions take 1250 steps during their fastest mile. Each paw takes 625 steps in the modern mile or 574 steps in the Roman mile. Running stride length is considered twice as long as walking stride length, so a huge extrapolation could directly link lion running videos to ancient Rome. It would be worth analyzing video of lions walking to more directly compare them to the Roman mile.

Having a measurement system not based on powers of 10 is brutal, but all measurement systems start with a guy basing a length on some natural phenomenon. Basing length on the size of a gram of water is about as arbitrary as basing length on the size of a human paw. The metric system is just as likely to be replaced by a new system based on the distance between stars or Elon Musk's hair transplants.




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