What is the origin of a milliliter?

Answer 1

It a bit of a story:

When the metric system or International System of Units (SI) of units was being developed the French wanted to tie as many units together as possible. They were pretty much stuck with the second as the base unit of time and the freezing and boiling points of water as a good basis for the temperature scale (1oC is 1/100 of the difference between the bolling and freezing point)

For length they chose the distance between the north pole and the equator. The metre (or meter) was originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole.

Having a length they could define area and volume.

For mass they chose another universal standard - water. at 4oC water attains its maximum density. When a volume of water equal to 1 cm3 of water is weighed it has a mass of 1 gram.

There are certain useful units to have in daily life - a meter is the length of your arm and a good measure for cloth and lumber, a tonne is the mass of a cubic meter of water and good for weighing coal and turnips as a crop. However a person cooks food in smaller units. A kilogram (1000 grams) is a thousandth of a tonne and about the size of a pot roast, and a litre (a kilogram of water) is a good measure for wine orr other fluids. The liter is still too big for some uses of volumes like spices and medicines so another smaller unit the milliliter (1/1000 liter) was commonly used.

The SI units are all related by a factor of ten (milli-, centi- etc.) so the size of the milliliter had to be both a decimal fraction of a liter and a usable size.

Answer 2

The milliliter originates from the metric system, where the prefix "milli-" represents one thousandth. Therefore, a milliliter is equal to one thousandth of a liter, making it a commonly used unit for measuring volumes of liquids.

Answer 3

It is 1,000 of a Litre, the original volume of 1 Kilogram of water.