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  • Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm:markwyner@mas.to
    Jul 3, 2026, 6:45 AM

    TIL some interesting things about the metric system…

    1. Over centuries there were multiple attempts at standardizing a measurements system. France pulled it off during the French Revolution. Two chemists (husband and wife) devised it.

    2. The base units were built to be realisable. Meaning based on and provable with nature.

    3. The meter was realisable as one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the equator. Later is was converted to 1/299,792,458 of light speed per second.

    Bonus: Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier is one of the two aforementioned chemists. She was instrumental in the standardization of the scientific method.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_s

    #MetricSystem #Science #History #TIL #ScientificMethod

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Replies

  • plactagonicplactagonic@f.cz
    Jul 3, 2026, 8:24 AM

    @markwyner I visited museum Arts et Metiés in Paris where you can see the prototypes of the meter, kg,... and history of measures used before the metric system.

    By the time I got to the display with the metric system and started taking photos I heard some American tourists behind me "Pff, another measuring stick and some measuring jugs..."

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  • Level 98 🇺🇦level98@mastodon.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 10:20 AM

    @plactagonic @markwyner I would love to go and it definitely has "changed" reasonably recently (though I realise you mean the style of presentation is dated) because... the definition of the kg no longer being based on physical objects only happened in 2019!

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  • Level 98 🇺🇦level98@mastodon.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 10:13 AM

    @markwyner Another interesting thing about the metric system is that it is no longer called the metric system - it hasn't officially been called the metric system for a long time.

    At the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 it was renamed the International System of Units, commonly referred to as SI units - Système International d'Unités.

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  • Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm:markwyner@mas.to
    Jul 3, 2026, 4:34 PM

    @level98 right. I was reading about “SI” and didn’t know what it meant. Here in the U.S., where we’re only one of three countries to refuse adoption of it, most people probably have no idea what that means.

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  • Level 98 🇺🇦level98@mastodon.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 9:18 PM

    @markwyner Oh, the US *does* use SI... just most people don't know it. The US are a member state of the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures - International Bureau of Weights and Measures) which oversees the SI etc. And the US lab NIST, for example, plays/has played a large role in relation to the work of the BIPM.

    Also, units such as the lb, are defined in terms of SI units e.g. 1lb = 0.45359237 kg. The SI is the only definitional system of units.

    bipm.org/en/member-states

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  • Ray McCarthyraymaccarthy@mastodon.ie
    Jul 3, 2026, 5:34 PM

    @markwyner
    No, it's wrong. Even USA-centric Wikipedia that gives USA spelling priority, has
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internat
    The seven SI base units Symbol Name Quantity
    s second time
    m metre length
    kg kilogram mass
    A ampere electric current
    K kelvin thermodynamic temperature
    mol mole amount of substance
    cd candela luminous intensity

    Also
    0 °F, approximately -17.8 °C or 255.38 K ( no °)

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  • Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm:markwyner@mas.to
    Jul 3, 2026, 6:35 PM

    @raymaccarthy sorry. I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to make.

    On the very entry you linked to, there is a section that explicitly notes the lexicographic variance:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internat

    You’re showing that the U.S. English entry lists it as metre in that table. But this section on lexicographic conventions notes that it’s simply spelled slightly different for American English. The table is formal, so it uses the source spelling.

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  • lucaluc0x61@mastodon.uno
    Jul 3, 2026, 11:14 AM

    @markwyner A bit more scientific than some smart guy saying his hot summer laboratory temperature was '100'.

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