Talk:List of United States Presidents by height order

Untitled
In this day of style over substance, it's said that the taller candidate always wins. Is there someway we can discuss this and see if it's true? RickK 05:58, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)


 * For a simple counterexample, Al Gore is unofficially 6'1" (source: some random web site), whereas Bush is listed as 5'11". -- Cyrius|&#9998; 06:15, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Exactly, and Gore received more votes numerically. Not True! Any other example? &mdash;Gabbe 15:14, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, continuing to dig... Google Answers to the rescue. Elections where the shorter candidate won: 1972 Nixon vs McGovern and 1976 Carter vs Ford. There's also quite a few where the winner's height advantage was negligible. Clinton, Nixon and Eisenhower were all only a half-inch taller than their opponents. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 17:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * 5' 5 1/2" George W. Bush defeated 6' 11 1/2" John Kerry in the 2004 presidential elections.


 * I think you have your inches backwards.  GWB is 5' 11" and Kerry is 6' 5 1/2".  Kerry has a 6.5" advantage on Bush, not a 16 inch one ... IdahoEv 05:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought this was interesting as well, especially looking at the first presidents, it seems notable that Washington was a demigod of his time despite only moderate performance as a general in the War of Independence, and comparitively modest role in the shaping of the early nation. --141.212.142.247 16:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Comparison to list of Candidate heights
It seems that many of the heights given on this list conflict with many of the heights given on the list of "candidate heights" from each election. Something should be done to bring these articles into concurrence.

Centimeters or millimeters?
Aren't centimeters (or centimetres as i would more naturally call them) deprecated in SI? Shouldn't SI normally use meters or millimeters? --rossb 00:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, we 'murricans deprecate them metric numbers all the time. Wha-haha. :P Um, anyway, if you say so, absolutely, but I think they teach us in school that centimeters are closest to inches, and that's what's marked out on the opposite sides of our rulers (inch markings on side [divided by 8 or 16], centimeters on the other [divided by 10]), so I think that's what 'murricans gravitate to when converting to metric. Anyway, forgive my total stupidity on this, but would Lincoln's 192 cm be 1.92 meters? If so, shouldn't be to hard to swap over. jengod 01:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Centimeters are most definitely not deprecated in SI - any prefixed value of meters is perfectly acceptable. In common usage, of course, some are less used than others (dekameters or hectometers, for example), but they are still allowed. Centimeters is very commonly used for measuring people's height - and, as jengod points out, converting between cm and m is trivial... So, IMO, quoting their heights in m or cm is both equally good. &mdash; QuantumEleven | (talk) 09:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Chart
The accompanying chart has a couple of issues. First, it seems inappropriate to list only metric units, when the US clearly does not widely use them in this context (don't worry, I'm pro-metric, but I'm also pro-context on Wikipedia). Listing by centimeters also seems a bit dodgy if we don't have top-notch sources for historical metric heights, whereas using inches at least conforms us in WP:V. Second, the chart does not conform with the official presidential numbering, where Grover Cleveland is both 22nd and 24th. It's widely known that Bush is "43" to his dad's "41", so having them as 42 and 40 is potentially confusing. (Wikipedia conforms with the official numbering, although some reference works do not.) Finally, the chart can't be right if the numbers in the article are correct, as the chart shows an upward progression from Reagan to Bush to Clinton, but Clinton was between his two predecessors' heights. --Dhartung | Talk 02:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, if the information in this article is correct then the chart is incorrect (or vice versa). The article lists presidents #23-25 (Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley) as having heights of 173, 180, and 170 centimeters, respectively. But the columns for those three president numbers in the chart appear to have heights about 168, 170, and 178 centimeters. I.E. the chart claims McKinley was 8 cm taller than Cleveland, while this article claims Cleveland was 10 cm taller than McKinley. Someone ought to generate a new chart. IdahoEv 05:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Weird list
This list is weird. Why do we need to sort presidents by height? How useful is this information? Should we sort them by weight too? Actually, if we were to make a List of Finnish Presidents by weight order then Martti Ahtisaari would be number 1 by a long shot. J I P | Talk 07:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

JFK 5'10"?
I'm pretty sure he was over 6 feet tall. 04:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)