Everyone seems to want to reinvent my question. Here it is, again:
What person (name, please, and date if possible) was responsible for the
word "metric" to be used in the adjective form in the phrase "metric
system". It could have been called the "yay-big system", the "ten-sies
system", the "Republican Egalitarian Measuring System", or just "the
Jaques Henri d'Orle System". But it came to be called the "metric
system". Again who made that happen -- not why, not based on whatever
etymology -- just who? Borda has been nominated, perhaps borrowing from
Burattini. Some person must have said (in French, I'm sure), "Je sais,
mes amis, appelons-le le syst�me m�trique." Who? Forget "why"; that's
been covered.
Jim
Pat Naughtin wrote:
>
> on 21.12.2000 14.13, James R. Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Right. Again, the question is who, not why. Can it be attributed to any
> > one person?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >>
> >> The term "metric" is old (I do not know how old) from Greek. It means
> >> measure.
> >> France had many systems of measure, that is, metric systems. Each local
> >> government had its own metric system. The national government of France made
> >> up
> >> one system of measures, specified to be decimal. So we have in French
> >> history the
> >> creation of not just a metric system but a decimal metric system. We, being
> >> sloppy, have dropped the "decimal". We need to say "decimal" more often.
> >> In SI 10 page 60, about the history of SI the second word is "decimal".
> >> Robert H Bushnell 00-12-20
>
> Dear Jim and All,
>
> I'm not quite sure whether you are asking for the originator of decimal
> measures or of metric measures.
>
> If you are referring to decimal measures, then there is no doubt that the
> originator was Simon Stevin (1548-1620) in a book called De Thiende, which
> he published in 1585 - the same year that Stevin developed the idea of the
> triangle of forces. De Thiende literally means 'Of Tithes' or 'Of Tenths'.
>
> As I understand it the idea was then passed to the Academicians in Paris in
> the late 1780s and the early 1790s via G Mouton, who proposed (in 1670) that
> one sixtieth part of a degree of the meridian of Earth as a unit for a
> decimal system of measure.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pat Naughtin CAMS
> Geelong, Australia
--
Metric Methods(SM) "Don't be late to metricate!"
James R. Frysinger, CAMS http://www.metricmethods.com/
10 Captiva Row e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Charleston, SC 29407 phone/FAX: 843.225.6789
