The term meter first coined in 1790 by Leblone for the fundamental unit of length.

“One faith, one weight, one measure, and one coinwould all the world in harmony conjoin”

Miller, 1789 – address to England’s Parliament

It took the French Revolution whichproclaimed universal rights for all people, to champion universal measures,“for all people, for all time.”

It took from 1792 to 1799, for Delambre and Mechain to measure the meridian from Dunkerque to Barcelona, through Paris. The meter was to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. “Conquests will come and go but this work will endure” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Countries (2002) not officially accepting metric system:

United States of AmericaMyanmarLiberia

“Shall we mold our citizens to the law, or the law to our citizens?”

Adams to Jefferson

1999 - A NASA investigation as to the cause of the 125 M dollar loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter determined it to result from one company sending data in Imperial units to another which assumed they were in metric. The difference between miles and kilometers was enough to send the orbiter 60 miles off course into a suicidal orbit into the Martian surface.

Initial measurement mistake (0.2 mm off)(not “exactly” one ten-millionth of ¼ meridian)

June 22nd 1799 – platinum bar cast1889 – replaced by platinum-iradium bar

1983 – time it takes light to travel 1/299,792,458 seconds in a vacuum

Our choice of cm and gramsas units puts us close to the

center of things.

Note About Temperature Scales

Fahrenheit and Celsius scales are not thermodynamictemperature scales, so do not permit measurements proportional to the average atomic and molecular kinetic energies of the substance in question.

The Rankine thermodynamic scale was formed out of the Fahrenheit scale. The 0o Rankine lies at about –460oF.

The Kelvin thermodynamic scale was formed out of the Celsius scale. The 0o Kelvin lies at about – 273o C.

‘units of length, mass, time and temperature which areindependent of special bodies or substances, which

necessarily retain their significance for all times and for all environments, terrestrial and human or otherwise.’

Max Planck

mpl = (hc/G)1/2 = 5.56 x 10-5 gramsLlp = (Gh/c3) = 4.13 x 10-33 cmtpl = (Gh/c5) = 2.38x10-43 seconds Tpl = k-1(hc5/G)1/2 = 3.5x1032 Kelvin

F = -Gm1m2/r2

c = speed of lightE2 –E1 = hKEavg = (3/2)kT