Hi,
There's an interesting book called The Measure of All Things which covers
the quest for determining the length of the meter for the purpose of
creating the ultimate scientifically based system of measurements called the
metric system. The author also presents, intentionally or otherwise,
additional themes in the book about the migration from what he refers to as
savants into what we now call scientists and about some of the pitfalls of
bureaucracies and government back 'science'. It's a book that is
interesting to read and quite insightful, bordering on being as interesting
as the book Longitude which I consider should be a must read for anyone
interested in science and technology, especially as a career.
One of the observations made in the book was that there are several criteria
for a system of measurements. These include practical values for common use
and ease of use for the end user and ease of calibration or determination of
the validity of the measurement tools. Beyond that, it really doesn't
matter. Some things are more convenient to do metric, some are not.
Fortunately, only a subset of the original metric system was implemented.
We don't have 10 hour days and ten day weeks or 400 degrees in a circle.
I'm not sure many could tolerate only 7 more days until the weekend.
While there is the claim that the metric system is based upon things
physical rather than something arbitrary, like the length of some dead
king's foot, this claim is somewhat exagerated. What matters is the ease of
reproducing the standard. The meter itself was an attempt to be defined as
a particular fraction of the distance from pole to equator at the longitude
of Paris, the assumption at the time was that the earth was a perfect sphere
which it wasn't. Also, the ultimate accuracy of the measurement was off by
several thousands of an inch. The claim of absolute reference to natural
phenomenon become questionable when one asks why that fraction and why the
meridian through Paris, accuracy aside.
It's nice to use meters for wavelength because for us in the states,it's
really more abstract than feet and inches and depending on the speed of
propagation in the wire/coax, this distance in terms of wavelength can
change significantly.
As for adapting the metric system, I may use watts and occaisonally meters
and grams when appropriate but I have no interest in changing it all for no
real benefit.
best regards,
Charles
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