Why's a Meter a Meter?
Meter is the standard unit of length used by most countries around the world. But how did they define it? Hosted by: Hank Green Want more SciShow in person? We'll be at NerdCon: Nerdfighteria...
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A meter is about… about this long. It is the official unit of length in the International System of Units, the standard used by scientists and most countries around the world. The meter might seem kind of arbitrary, and of course it is, but its definition was carefully chosen and made more precise over the past few centuries. For a long time, countries used all kinds of different units, like the length of someone’s forearm – called the cubit – or the English yard. But around the 18th century, the French Academy of Sciences set out to standardize some measurements. There were a couple ideas floating around about how to define the basic unit of length. One was the length of a pendulum that could swing from one side to the other in one second. But as...
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A meter is about… about this long. It is the official unit of length in the International System of Units, the standard used by scientists and most countries around the world. The meter might seem kind of arbitrary, and of course it is, but its definition was carefully chosen and made more precise over the past few centuries. For a long time, countries used all kinds of different units, like the length of someone’s forearm – called the cubit – or the English yard. But around the 18th century, the French Academy of Sciences set out to standardize some measurements. There were a couple ideas floating around about how to define the basic unit of length. One was the length of a pendulum that could swing from one side to the other in one second. But as...
