A Brief History of the Metric System: From Revolutionary France to the Constant-Based SI

Description

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. Preface Acknowledgments Contents About the Author 1 Introduction: Decimal Ideas Before Revolutionary France 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Simon Stevin and Decimal Arithmetic 1.3 Early Examples of Practical Decimal Measures 1.4 Theoretical Ideas About Universal Measures 1.5 Weights and Measures in the British Parliament 1.6 New Measures for the New United States? References 2 Reform of Weights and Measures in Revolutionary France 2.1 Weights and Measures in the Ancien Régime 2.2 Weights and Measures in the Constituent Assembly 2.3 Weights and Measures Under the Convention 2.4 The Republican Calendar and Decimal Time 2.5 The Metric Project and the Reign of Terror 2.6 Resumption of the Project After the Terror 2.7 Completion of the Project: The Definitive Meter References 3 Metrication in France and Beyond: The Meter Goes International 3.1 Metrication in Post-revolutionary France 3.2 Metrication Beyond France, 1851–1875 3.3 The Metre Convention of 1875 and the International Prototypes References 4 The Système International D’Unités (SI) of 1960 4.1 The International Metrology Regime to the Establishment of the SI 4.2 The Quantity Time to the Establishment of the SI 4.3 Temperature to the Establishment of the SI 4.4 Electrical Units to the Establishment of the SI 4.5 Luminous Intensity to the Establishment of the SI References 5 Changes in the SI from Its Introduction (1960) to the Explicit-Constant Revision (2019) 5.1 The Mole, a Seventh Base Unit 5.2 Incremental Changes in the Base Units 5.3 The Explicit-Constant SI References 6 The Metric System and the United States 6.1 Introduction: The Metric System in the US Today 6.2 Metric Conversion in the US: A Decision Whose Time Has not yet Come 6.3 Conclusion: Why is the US Still not Predominantly Metric? References Index