John Wallace
E Band
1/14/18
Redefining the Metric System
The SI units are used scientifically across the globe. Their history, as given by Latif Nasser in a recent article, starts in the seventeenth century. During this time, the French required a standard for measurement that would remove the complication of translating between the 250,000 measurement systems at use in Europe. As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) puts it, scientists at the time believed “that the natural laws that govern the universe...are constant and can provide a far more reliable basis of measurement than physical objects we can see and touch.” The French government wanted to invent a universally recognizable measurement system. To do so, French scientists decided to create the meter as the base unit for length in the Metric System, and define it as one-ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. Basing the meter off an unchanging property of nature would create a reliable system of measurement and could be accessed anywhere in the world. To measure one-ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, French astronomer Pierre Méchain traveled to Spain, taking 10,000 incredibly precise measurements of his latitude and later shipped them back to France, where they were used to calculate this distance. Unfortunately, he faced incredible difficulties before he could return to France. First, he suffered an accident that left him in a coma for three days. Second, before he could return to France, a war broke out between France and Spain, leaving him trapped in his hotel room. This left him with nothing to do but review his latitude measurements. Much to his dismay, he discovered that the measurements he sent back to France were in fact incorrect. This error was large enough to affect the length of the standard meter being forged in France, thus disconnecting the meter from an unchanging property of nature and leaving the French government’s goal unfinished. Pierre Méchain attempted to fix his errors by traveling to Spain once again, but contracted malaria and died before he could finish. Although the ultimate goal for the Metric System to be based off of unchanging properties of nature had failed, there were no problems using the new system of measurement because everyone was using the same standard for the meter. This standard would remain unchanged until the 20th century, when one by one, the standards of the Metric System were redefined to be based off of unchanging properties of nature in hopes of creating the more reliable and accessible system the French envisioned. For example, in 1983, the meter was redefined as the distance travelled by light in a complete vacuum in one 299,792,458th of a second. This redefinition took the world one step closer to achieving the goal that Pierre Méchain died for. Until November 2018, all base Metric standards except the kilogram had been redefined so that they would be defined using nature’s unchanging properties, similar to the meter’s redefinition in 1983. Previously, each country had a standard object with the mass of a kilogram, that were calibrated against “Le Grande K,” the platinum-iridium standard for the kilogram. Over time, scientists noticed that the mass of the copy kilograms deviated from that of the kilogram, meaning that recent calibrations using these copies were potentially inaccurate. However, on November 16th, 2018, sixty countries unanimously voted to redefine the kilogram and complete the French government’s goal. This redefinition removes the ‘middleman’ of the kilogram copies in each country, effectively removing room for error. Now, anyone with the proper tools can access the standard for the kilogram and calibrate their own tools without the need for an inaccurate copy of the kilogram.
With these changes, as a human race, we are more globally connected with each other. The new metric system gives people globally, a way to access an accurate system of measurements. Without the need for regular re-calibration of measurement tools that rendered the previous Metric System imprecise, we are now able to be confident in the accuracy of our measurements. This new system gives people a way of globally and accurately communicating values, measurements, and calculations with extreme precision, making scientific advancements that were previously impossible, possible. These advancements can be used to help develop technologies used to grow and produce food for people in poverty, or create new compounds for medicines that will be able to cure terminal diseases. As explained in an article by the NIST, with the new definition of the kilogram, scaling measurements will also be more reliable and accurate. As the mass of a sample becomes higher or lower than the kilogram, measurements of it become less reliable. If a company developing a compound needs to measure one one-millionth of a kilogram of a chemical, they would require a very precise and likely expensive machine to mass this sample. With the new kilogram, one one-millionth of a kilogram could be accurately calculated using the properties of nature it is based on. As the article explains, “If [the kilogram is] implemented as expected, all measures of mass — whether an eyelash or an airplane — could, if measured with the same technology, be equally accurate and precise.” This would lead to affordable tools to measure such small or large masses that are accessible by more people, such as students or startups. Such tools would allow students to perform experiments that require extreme microscale or macroscale measurements. Similarly, the cheaper tools that might be developed would mean that the cost for a startup to enter the field of science research would be less, thus encouraging more startups in this field. With more researchers comes more competition; both of which exponentially speed up the rate at which scientific advancements occur. Whether it be at an educational or professional level, the redefinition of the Metric System will lead to discoveries that will impact all of humanity.
Works Cited
The Meter: The Measure of a Man | Radiolab | WNYC Studios. (2019). WNYC Studios. Retrieved 5 January 2019, from https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/meter-measure-man
Society, N. (2013). Meter Defined. National Geographic Society. Retrieved 5 January 2019, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/mar30/meter-defined/
A Turning Point for Humanity: Redefining the World’s Measurement System. (2019). NIST. Retrieved 7 January 2019, from
https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/turning-point-humanity-redefining-worlds-measurement-system
E Band
1/14/18
Redefining the Metric System
The SI units are used scientifically across the globe. Their history, as given by Latif Nasser in a recent article, starts in the seventeenth century. During this time, the French required a standard for measurement that would remove the complication of translating between the 250,000 measurement systems at use in Europe. As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) puts it, scientists at the time believed “that the natural laws that govern the universe...are constant and can provide a far more reliable basis of measurement than physical objects we can see and touch.” The French government wanted to invent a universally recognizable measurement system. To do so, French scientists decided to create the meter as the base unit for length in the Metric System, and define it as one-ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. Basing the meter off an unchanging property of nature would create a reliable system of measurement and could be accessed anywhere in the world. To measure one-ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, French astronomer Pierre Méchain traveled to Spain, taking 10,000 incredibly precise measurements of his latitude and later shipped them back to France, where they were used to calculate this distance. Unfortunately, he faced incredible difficulties before he could return to France. First, he suffered an accident that left him in a coma for three days. Second, before he could return to France, a war broke out between France and Spain, leaving him trapped in his hotel room. This left him with nothing to do but review his latitude measurements. Much to his dismay, he discovered that the measurements he sent back to France were in fact incorrect. This error was large enough to affect the length of the standard meter being forged in France, thus disconnecting the meter from an unchanging property of nature and leaving the French government’s goal unfinished. Pierre Méchain attempted to fix his errors by traveling to Spain once again, but contracted malaria and died before he could finish. Although the ultimate goal for the Metric System to be based off of unchanging properties of nature had failed, there were no problems using the new system of measurement because everyone was using the same standard for the meter. This standard would remain unchanged until the 20th century, when one by one, the standards of the Metric System were redefined to be based off of unchanging properties of nature in hopes of creating the more reliable and accessible system the French envisioned. For example, in 1983, the meter was redefined as the distance travelled by light in a complete vacuum in one 299,792,458th of a second. This redefinition took the world one step closer to achieving the goal that Pierre Méchain died for. Until November 2018, all base Metric standards except the kilogram had been redefined so that they would be defined using nature’s unchanging properties, similar to the meter’s redefinition in 1983. Previously, each country had a standard object with the mass of a kilogram, that were calibrated against “Le Grande K,” the platinum-iridium standard for the kilogram. Over time, scientists noticed that the mass of the copy kilograms deviated from that of the kilogram, meaning that recent calibrations using these copies were potentially inaccurate. However, on November 16th, 2018, sixty countries unanimously voted to redefine the kilogram and complete the French government’s goal. This redefinition removes the ‘middleman’ of the kilogram copies in each country, effectively removing room for error. Now, anyone with the proper tools can access the standard for the kilogram and calibrate their own tools without the need for an inaccurate copy of the kilogram.
With these changes, as a human race, we are more globally connected with each other. The new metric system gives people globally, a way to access an accurate system of measurements. Without the need for regular re-calibration of measurement tools that rendered the previous Metric System imprecise, we are now able to be confident in the accuracy of our measurements. This new system gives people a way of globally and accurately communicating values, measurements, and calculations with extreme precision, making scientific advancements that were previously impossible, possible. These advancements can be used to help develop technologies used to grow and produce food for people in poverty, or create new compounds for medicines that will be able to cure terminal diseases. As explained in an article by the NIST, with the new definition of the kilogram, scaling measurements will also be more reliable and accurate. As the mass of a sample becomes higher or lower than the kilogram, measurements of it become less reliable. If a company developing a compound needs to measure one one-millionth of a kilogram of a chemical, they would require a very precise and likely expensive machine to mass this sample. With the new kilogram, one one-millionth of a kilogram could be accurately calculated using the properties of nature it is based on. As the article explains, “If [the kilogram is] implemented as expected, all measures of mass — whether an eyelash or an airplane — could, if measured with the same technology, be equally accurate and precise.” This would lead to affordable tools to measure such small or large masses that are accessible by more people, such as students or startups. Such tools would allow students to perform experiments that require extreme microscale or macroscale measurements. Similarly, the cheaper tools that might be developed would mean that the cost for a startup to enter the field of science research would be less, thus encouraging more startups in this field. With more researchers comes more competition; both of which exponentially speed up the rate at which scientific advancements occur. Whether it be at an educational or professional level, the redefinition of the Metric System will lead to discoveries that will impact all of humanity.
Works Cited
The Meter: The Measure of a Man | Radiolab | WNYC Studios. (2019). WNYC Studios. Retrieved 5 January 2019, from https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/meter-measure-man
Society, N. (2013). Meter Defined. National Geographic Society. Retrieved 5 January 2019, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/mar30/meter-defined/
A Turning Point for Humanity: Redefining the World’s Measurement System. (2019). NIST. Retrieved 7 January 2019, from
https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/turning-point-humanity-redefining-worlds-measurement-system
