Measuring the meter and using the metric system
2003; Elsevier BV; Volume: 91; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0002-9149(03)00011-0
ISSN1879-1913
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Astronomy and Related Studies
ResumoThe metric system changed the world! It was a radical innovation. It made possible free trade, the open market, and globalization. Before the metric system, a pint in one community was quite different than a pint in another community, and therefore, trade among communities was a bit hazardous. Ken Alder has written a book entitled The Measure of All Things. The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World. 1 Alder K. The Measure of All Things. The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World. The Free Press, New York2002: 400 Google Scholar In the midst of the French Revolution, 2 astronomers set out in opposite directions from Paris, 1 going north to Dunkirk, the other south to Barcelona, for the purpose of measuring a portion of the north–south meridian to define the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator so that all countries would have a specific unit of measure. Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre led the northern portion and Pierre-Francois-André Méchain led the southern portion of the meridian expedition. Ken Alder located the long-lost correspondence between these 2 men, along with their mission logbooks, and he stumbled upon a 200-year-old secret, and that is that the meter is in error! Méchain, 1 of the 2 astronomers, made contradictory measurements from Barcelona and, in a panic, covered up the discrepancy. The guilty knowledge of his misdeed drove him to the brink of madness and ultimately to his death. Only then, after the meter had already been publicly announced, did his partner, Delambre, discover the truth and face a fateful choice: to disclose the error or cover it up.
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