History of the meter

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From: Raleigh McLemore (raleighmclemore@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Oct 11 2002 - 18:29:04 PDT 

Message-ID: <20021012012904.17614.qmail@web40209.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 18:29:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Raleigh McLemore <raleighmclemore@yahoo.com>
Subject: History of the meter

There was a little flurry of pinhole letters on the
history of the metric system, which I know almost
nothing about...so I shut up. The latest issue of
Invention and Technology Magazine has an interesting
article on how the length of the meter was determined,
and how errors crept into the determination. Called
"The Mis-Measure of All Things" I really enjoyed the
article.
Briefly it chronicles the foundation of the meter in
18th century France. Its focus is on Delambre and
Mechain, two men of fairly humble families, who set
out to determine the distance from pole to equator.
The historical context is that Newton had determined
that the Earth was not round and the French were just
as determined to find out how not round it was.
The article is written by Ken Alder, author of "The
Measure of All Things" which is a history of the
metric system to be published this month.
Now I know a little, tinsy bit about the metric system
and have, because of my knowledge, become dangerous.

With firm handshake,
Raleigh

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