This evening, I learned that one meter equals 39.3700787 inches . While this may come as no surprise to some people, it was one to me - for years, I had mistakenly believed a meter was 39.77 inches, and now I know it's basically 39.37. Of course, I'm not alone in my confusion. A bit of research on Google revealed quite a few different conversions from meters to inches. Here are some of them: 38 inches according to a page at Arkansas State University and another at Microflex Technologies . 38.16 inches according to a rounding-happy math teacher at Norfolk Collegiate School in Virginia. 38.37 inches according to Honeywell's Sensotec folks. 38.8 inches according to some numerological babble 39 inches according to Fife Products and some folks who sell quilting products . 39.14 inches according to the specifications on a measuring wheel for engineers. (uh-oh!) 39.15 inches according to an October 30 2002 entry in a blog . 39.21 inches according