Re: Where do the units come from?

coetzee.evert@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Guys

I'm wonder where the units of measure come from. Specifically the
kilometer. I can swear I read somewhere that the distance from some...
pole or latitude to paris = x kilometers and that is how they decided
how long a kilometer is. It is however IMPOSSIBLE for me to find the
history of the kilometer online as there's a gazillion website wanting
to help me convert kilometers to other units.

Do you perhaps know of a website where they have the origins of the
units explained?

France sought to be the repository of primary standards when the
metric system was developed. The Official explanation for the meter
has a much more reasonable practical alternative: a meter is the
length of a poorly measured 1-second pendulum (short by 0.56%).

Re the Royal Society in 1660, after a suggestion by Christian Huygens
and Ole Rømer (based also on a study of Marin Mersenne published in
Paris in 1644). The proposal was followed by an analogous suggestion
by Jean Picard in 1668. An independent proposal was raised by Tito
Livio Burattini in 1675, calling the proposed unit `meter'.

In 1740 Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and Cassini de Thury measured the
length of the 1-second pendulum in Paris (48 degrees 50' latitude),
obtaining 99.383 cm in today's measure (short by 0.62% vs. today's
meter and remarkably consistent with the alternative to the Official
Truth).

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
.

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