Foot Candle Definition:
Webster's Dictionary, 1913

The amount of illumination produced by a standard candle at a distance of one foot.

An easy example would be to have you get a ruler and a standard candle. Light the candle and put the candle at the beginning of the ruler. Make sure you are in a dark room with no lights on. Now you can see how One foot-candle of light is the amount of light that candle generates from one foot away.

Another way to look at it: Let's take a light fixture with a bulb that you're told should produce 50 foot candles of light. This means that at one foot from this fixture, you will receive 50 foot candles of light.

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