A Brief History of the Metric System

From Revolutionary France to the Constant-Based SI

verfasst von: Carmen J. Giunta

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

This book succinctly traces the history of the metric system from early modern proposals of decimal measures, to the birth of the system in Revolutionary France, through its formal international adoption under the supervision of an international General Committee of Weights and Measures (CGPM), to its later expansion into the International System of Units (SI), currently formulated entirely in terms of physical constants. The wide range of human activities that employ weights and measures, from practical commerce to esoteric science, influenced both the development and the diffusion of the metric system. The roles of constants of nature in the formulation of the 18th-century metric system and in the 21st-century reformulation of the SI are described. Finally, the status of the system in the United States, the last major holdout against its everyday use, is also discussed.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction: Decimal Ideas Before Revolutionary France

Abstract

The conceptual prehistory of the metric system is reviewed. The metric system, an artificial system of measures, did not evolve from customary measures previously in use in late eighteenth-century France, but from a set of ideas published by natural philosophers in the second half of the seventeenth century. These ideas included the utility of decimal arithmetic and a relatively few choices for a length standard derived from nature. Principles for new measures designed on philosophical principles were taken up by governmental bodies in Great Britain and the United States late in the eighteenth century, but no new measures emerged from those discussions.

Carmen J. Giunta

Chapter 2. Reform of Weights and Measures in Revolutionary France

Abstract

Reform of weights and measures was one of the grievances mentioned frequently at the meeting of the Estates General of France in 1789. A project to establish a new system of measures on philosophical principles was begun not long afterward. The project underwent several changes early on, but after the early 1790s its shape changed little even as political turmoil brought violent ends to several of the individuals and institutions involved in it. Definitive meter and kilogram standards were legally adopted late in 1799, just after the fall of the first French Republic. This chapter lays out the story of reform of French weights and measures that led to the metric system as well as shorter-lived changes in organizing the day and the year.

Carmen J. Giunta

Chapter 3. Metrication in France and Beyond: The Meter Goes International

Abstract

Adoption of the new metric measures was slow even in France. Compulsory use was resisted and concessions were made that restored some of the names and divisions of older French customary units. The system developed in the 1790s took firm hold in France only after 1840. It was gradually adopted in other nations as well. In 1875 the Metre Convention established institutions that put the metric system under international governance.

Carmen J. Giunta

Chapter 4. The Système International D’Unités (SI) of 1960

Abstract

The international metrology institutions founded by the Metre Convention became involved in other aspects of measurement of interest to science. At the time it established the international prototypes of the meter and kilogram, it was already interested in temperature scales. In the twentieth century, electrical units also came under its purview. In 1960, the 11th CGPM (Conférence générale des poids et mesures, or General Conference of Weights and Measures) introduced the Système international d’unités (International System of Units, SI) based on six base units: the meter, kilogram, second, degree Kelvin, ampere and candela. This chapter outlines some of the events that led to the introduction of the SI. Then it briefly goes back in time to sketch histories of the base units that were not part of the original metric system, namely the second, the degree Kelvin, the ampere and the candela.

Carmen J. Giunta

Chapter 5. Changes in the SI from Its Introduction (1960) to the Explicit-Constant Revision (2019)

Abstract

After the introduction of the SI in 1960, some of the base units were redefined in terms of more stable standards or more precise measurement techniques. The biggest change in the system in its early years, though, was the addition of a seventh base unit, the mole, by the 14th CGPM (Conférence générale des poids et mesures, or General Conference of Weights and Measures) in 1971. A thorough revision of the SI was approved by the 26th CGPM in 2018, taking effect in 2019. The revision expressed all of the SI base units by fixing the values of such fundamental constants of nature as the speed of light and the Planck constant, resulting in today’s explicit-constant SI.

Carmen J. Giunta

Chapter 6. The Metric System and the United States

Abstract

The United States is famously the largest of a very few nations whose everyday weights and measures are not metric. Less well known are the facts that the US was among the signatories of the Metre Convention in 1875 or that the meter and the kilogram have been the fundamental standards of length and mass in the US since the late nineteenth century. The US and the metric system have had several episodes of approach and avoidance over the whole of the lifetime of that system. This chapter describes briefly the history of the status of the metric system in the US. At present the system is legal in the US and is used in some applications; however, customary units remain the weights and measures most commonly employed by most people in the US for everyday purposes.

Carmen J. Giunta

Backmatter

Titel: A Brief History of the Metric System
verfasst von: Carmen J. Giunta
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-28436-6
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-28435-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28436-6