binch
Well-Known Member
Heard someone point out that there are more yachts registered in countries that still use the imperial system than use the metric. True or false, I checked the origins of metric. If not interested, then skip.
About 1660, the Royal Society in London proposed that the many different units of length should be replaced by one which was the length of a pendulum with a period of one second. The French Abbe Mouton suggested instead a length based on a minute of latitude, but that was shelved because it was too long to be covenient. The whole project was being worked on (relating all mesaures to length) when someone called Richer found that the length of such a pendulum varied with latitude.
Then in 1790 a bum named talleyrand revived the whole system based on a French pendulum, then in 1791 changed that to measuring the earth's surface distance between pole and equator, thus avoiding a controversy between Newton and Descartes (actually, Newton turned out to be right) and they calculated this by triangulation and physical measurement between Dunkerque and Barcelona., starting 1n 1792. The trouble was that different surveyors got different answers, but they still went ahead.
Since that time the length of a metre has been altered many times because a satisfactory definition has never been achieved. Several platinum "metres" have existed.
In Oct 1960 another definition, this time based on 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange light in a void of Krypton 86.
1983, it changed again. Now it is the distance run by light in space in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Ah-aah, but define a second! It is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation giving the diff between two superfine levels of the state of an atom of Caesium 133. Feel better now?
Now you understand why French boat factories market their 12 metre boats as (for example) the Garlic 40. In 300 years they have had to change the metre five times. In England a foot is still a foot is still a foot.
Hope this makes y'all feel better.
About 1660, the Royal Society in London proposed that the many different units of length should be replaced by one which was the length of a pendulum with a period of one second. The French Abbe Mouton suggested instead a length based on a minute of latitude, but that was shelved because it was too long to be covenient. The whole project was being worked on (relating all mesaures to length) when someone called Richer found that the length of such a pendulum varied with latitude.
Then in 1790 a bum named talleyrand revived the whole system based on a French pendulum, then in 1791 changed that to measuring the earth's surface distance between pole and equator, thus avoiding a controversy between Newton and Descartes (actually, Newton turned out to be right) and they calculated this by triangulation and physical measurement between Dunkerque and Barcelona., starting 1n 1792. The trouble was that different surveyors got different answers, but they still went ahead.
Since that time the length of a metre has been altered many times because a satisfactory definition has never been achieved. Several platinum "metres" have existed.
In Oct 1960 another definition, this time based on 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange light in a void of Krypton 86.
1983, it changed again. Now it is the distance run by light in space in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Ah-aah, but define a second! It is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation giving the diff between two superfine levels of the state of an atom of Caesium 133. Feel better now?
Now you understand why French boat factories market their 12 metre boats as (for example) the Garlic 40. In 300 years they have had to change the metre five times. In England a foot is still a foot is still a foot.
Hope this makes y'all feel better.
