Who Invented the Metric System (and Why It Isn’t As Perfect as You Think)

Meter? …or Metre?
↓ More info and sources below ↓

Why is a meter a meter? The meter is the world’s ultimate measure, but how did it become “the” meter? What is this measurement based on? The story of this revolution in measurement traces its roots to the French Revolution. Scientists decided that an equal and united people should have equal and united measures. So they sent a pair of young astronomers out to measure the world, and invent the meter. Little did they know they’d find nothing but war, deception, and strife along the way. As a result of this ill-fated mission, the meter carries an error that still persists today. Still think the metric system is so perfect?

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LEARN MORE:
This episode would not have been possible without one incredible book: “The Measure of All Things” by Ken Alder.
There’s so much more to this story that we couldn’t fit in the video, and this book has it all. War, madness, deception, shame, spies, the dawn of the Enlightenment, the birth of modern economics, lots more beheadings… Highly recommended!

MORE:

Williams, Jeffrey H. “Quantifying Measurement: The Tyranny of Numbers.” Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2016

Murdin, Paul. “Full meridian of glory: perilous adventures in the competition to measure the Earth.” Springer Science & Business Media, 2008.

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It’s Okay To Be Smart is hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.D.
Director: Joe Nicolosi
Writer: Joe Hanson
Producer/editor/animator: Andrew Matthews
Producer: Stephanie Noone and Amanda Fox

Produced by PBS Digital Studios
Music via APM

[besmart]

I'll pin this comment here so you don't have to make it again: I get it. Some of you spell it metre, rather than meter. And that makes about as much sense as the definition of the meter itself!

PS - Leave it to us Americans, the last holdhouts of non-metric units, to protest the meter by choosing to spell it how we want 😂

[TungstenWu]

HAHA "Les Measurables" AMAZING actually hilarious.

[Umirua]

Based on measurements according to earth's curvature?
Suddenly the Flat Earth society hates the metric system

[spiguy]

Who would win?
A measurement based on earth and light speed...

Or

Some body parts.

[the_danksmith]

Rest of the world:
1 kilometer= 1000 meters
1 meter= 10 decimeters
1 decimeter= 10 centimeters
1 centimeter= 10 milimeters
1 milimeter= 1000 micrometers
1 micrometer= 1000 nanometers


US:
1 mile= 1760 yards
1 yard= 3 feet
1 foot= 12 inches
1 inch= 8 1/8 inch??
1 ????=
Error 404! Sense not found!

[kindredferguson]

It's easy, A meter is 118.11 kernels of barley laid end to end.

[JohnSmith-tmxx]

Europeans:
"Let's invent a measurement system that's logical and makes perfect sense!"
Imperials:
"We shall do the exact opposite!"

[gregedwards]

How far is that thing?
A mile.
What's a mile?
8 furlongs.
What's a furlong?
10 chains.
What's a chain?
22 yards.
What's a yard?
3 feet.
What are feet?
12 inches.
why didn't you just say about 1600 metres in the first place?

[ThefreakyOo]

0:49 That's not what Europe looked like in 1789 😅

[weedandwine]

I wish we used metric system here in USA. I work in construction and it seems like such an easier system if everyone got used to it.

[tarsofelix]

Why do people care so much about the spelling of meter/metre?

Oh, yeah... This is the internet, I almost forgot.

[kevinklei]

As a retired Toolmaker my apprentice years in Australia in 14th February 1966 went decimal [Metric ] best thing ever. The  old 1 inch was divided into Halves ; quarters  ; eights; sixteenths ; thirty seconds ; sixty firths and then went into one thousands of one inch which is basically metric again . Metric was just a division of ten so easy even you Americans can do it. And while you are at it change your date system to Day : Month ; Year . And learn how to spell COLOUR .

[Milesco]

Truth is, it doesn't matter one iota how the meter (or metre!) was established. ANY convenient length will do. All that matters is that it can be easily and very accurately re-creatable in the lab. Which it now is. 😊

[ltericdavis]

Totally expecting comments to be filled with arguments about why America doesn't use metric. Instead we got arguments about spelling.


Welcome to the internet.

[Brouksgaming]

Yea people invented all measurements but something just feels good when 1 L = 1 Kg = 1 dm3 when it comes to water at 5 degrees

[melissanicole]

Dang! For them trying to calculate it that long ago and get it almost right is amazing and impressive! 😱

[Joridiy]

Curious side-note: Decimal Time wasn't a failure, it was killed because of several reasons that hadn't anything to see with the length of a second (because it wasn't defined yet), minutes or hours; but the fact that clocks were an awfully expensive luxury that almost nobody could afford (specially after the war and the revolution), watchmakers refused to decimalise the clocks because that would mean to trash their entire stocks and they would have to work from zero in an unknown field for them (create new engines, new mechanisms, & so on), the fathers of Decimal Time were dead in the fisrt 10 years of decimal time so there was no one to defend it, religious authorities refused to decimalise because it was linked to the anti-clerical revolution and there was also the counter-revolution and the fact that 24h dials were extremely rare because of the hardness of its making (that's why almost every old building has always either a dial of 12 or 6 hours and only the most expensive, rich buildings had an astronomical 24h dial; that made people have to adapt to the dial of 12 hours and even if nowadays it's cheap to buy 24h analogue clocks, they're rare because we used to the 12h dial because of the very scarceness of a 24h clock).

And not to forget a big reason too: printing new measurements or creating the big K wasn't difficult compared to create an enterily new machine to tell time, let alone using a dial of 24h which was hard to make and unusual; besides the lack of official support also killed decimal time. Official support is needed to encourage people to use a system, otherwise they won't even try it because people don't like to change customs and traditions.

[TheReaper]

the meter isnt really "wrong" today with speed of light measure, a meter has no objectvity, we made it, and we matched it to something in nature.

[Ziorac]

@ that last bit
The reason we say y'all should switch to the metric system isn't because the meter is based on some magical universal law. It's because the metric system makes sense in terms of conversions. 1 meter is 0.001 kilometers is 100 centimeters is 1000 millimeters. Imperial is... A whole mess of 1 mile is 5280 feet, while a foot is 12 inches and heaven forbid you can go smaller than an inch, cause why would you, right?

[LongshotRecordsTV]

When he said the triangles were connected it would have also been funny if he had Link from Legend of Zelda hold up the Triforce! Hahahahaha!