2007-12-12 05:01:35 · 4 answers · asked by tuthutop 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
The metre was designed to represent 1/10000000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator.
It was measured by French scientists that manually measured the distance from the north of France to the south and made a triangulation to calculate what portion of the distance from the North pole to the Equator that was and they then converted it into that distance and took 1/10000000 of it to find the meter. However, when they went back to Paris and they realized they had messed up some of the measurement. Because this had been a large investment they were afraid to announce the bad news to the government and they fudged the results. And that is why the meter is slightly less than 1/10000000 of the distance between the North pole and the Equator.
This happened a few years after the revolution when the French governement wanted to get rid of everything that reminded people of the monrachy. They decided to change everything, the name of some towns, the calendar and also the units of measurement. These units have been popular among scientists and became standards around the world (except in the US) because they were based on physical references instead of imperical ones.
2007-12-12 05:08:11 · answer #1 · answered by Christophe G 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In 1793, France adopted the metre based on provisional results from the expedition as its official unit of length. Although it was later determined that the first prototype metre bar was short by a fifth of a millimetre due to miscalculation of the flattening of the Earth, this length became the standard. So, the circumference of the Earth through the poles is approximately forty million metres.
2007-12-12 05:07:18 · answer #2 · answered by Matthew 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The decision by the French to abolish the old pre-revolutionary units was also influenced by the fact that there were no nation-wide standards of measure across France.
The units of length and weight varied from region to region!
Standard units were needed.
You could also go on to say that the gram derived from one cubic cm of water (at a given temp);
the are (pronounced "air") derived from a square 10m x 10m (too small for practical use and so the hectare is used).
2007-12-13 19:16:03 · answer #3 · answered by Red Campion 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This link will give you the answer .....
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/origin.html
2007-12-12 05:10:26 · answer #4 · answered by ragingmk 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋