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New Book Says The Meter Is all Wrong
Bill Klemm writes "Ken Alder's new book 'The Measure of All Things' scandalizes the metric system as 'arbitrary.' CNN has a little article about a new book that explores the 'odyssey' of Delambre and Mechain to find the perfect unit of measure."
A quote:
"I remember my fifth-grade teacher instructing us in the metric system and telling us we would need to learn this material because we would all be using it in the future," he says. "I believed her, of course. And when that future failed to arrive I began to wonder why.
He should get a clue, the rest of the world uses the metric system, this future has materialized. If one country wants to be stubborn and hold out, whatever.
Anyhow, the real beauty of the metric system is that it's various units of measurements make sense. As in, a centimeter is a hundredth of a meter, a millimeter is a thousands of a meter, etc. The imperial system wouldn't be so strange if it was 10 inches to a foot, but it's not.
Anyhow, the meter is not the only part of the metric system, it also encompasses temperature, weight, etc. And the meter is certainly less arbitrary than the foot!
In meters, for example, mathmeticians had to use a definition that allowed others acrossed the world to also come up with an exact length. If these mathemeticians truly wanted a non-arbitrary system back then, they could have made a "master meter stick", whose length was not based on anything arbitrary. But such a system would never work, because then they would have had to ship copies of the master meter stick across the world. The ratio system was much more practical.
Mass and volume are arbitarary in 2 ways. They rely off our arbitary meter, as well as the arbitary earth's gravity. A definition I've heard is that 1 cubic centimeter of water at sea level weights 1 gram and has a volume of 1 mL. Try taking a cubic centimeter of water to a different world, and you'll get different measurements. Today, the official definition of a kilogram is the mass of an international prototype in the form of a platinum-iridium cylinder kept at Sevres in France. (By the way, you could also say that using water is also arbitrary, since we earthlings used a commonly found liquid. The sea level is also arbitrary, since it varies across different coasts, as well over time)
Temperature is also based off the arbitary earth's atmosphere. 0 degrees Celsius is the freezing point of water at 1 atm (the standard air pressure of earth). If you increase or decrease the pressure, you'll get different freezing points.
Anyways, my point is, that it was next to impossible to come up with a practical system without it being arbitrary in some way or another.
P.S. If anything in this article needs correction, please correct it. I'm probably wrong somewhere since everything I said was what I remember from years ago.
Well, france and a bunch of other countries kinda just said "okay everyone, we're going to use Metric for everything now!" (but they said it in french. it probably sounded smoother).
Is switching to the unit system everybody else uses on earth harder than say, switch to an arbitrary new currency like the Euro?
Some would argue the US did make it harder for itself by waiting so long. In the end, it's really a matter of motivation.
As long the US doesn't see a need to follow what other countries are doing, things won't change.
That is the real reason, more than "oh well, it's kinda hard to do".
It will be a sign of a major change of attitude when the US finally decides to do the switch.
Who knows what will be next? ratifying a kyoto treaty? playing nice with the other kids^H^H^H^Hnations at the UN? The possibilities are endless.