Considering what those guys went through, it was and is very accurate indeed. I recall that one minute of the earth's surface in any circle of circumference is exactly 1852 meters. Thus 1852 metres times 360 degrees times 60 minutes equals 40 003.2 kilo-metres.
So that would mean the error from the equator to either pole is 0.8 kilo-metres (3.2 divided by 4). Can we avoid talking the pear shape of the earth? Now you may ask why I put the hyphen in kilo-metres and why I spelled metres that way? I think that the U.S. may be making a big mistake which could be rectified if corrected early. This list has probably gone all around on this before. A meter would be a machine whereas the metre would be for measuring distance. Two separate words spelled differently. Pronunciation could be enhanced by using the hyphen because how could one pronounce kilo-metre as "kil ohm e tre". One would have to exert himself to do so. Perhaps it would eliminate the use of "kilo" for kilo-gram too. There seems to be little problem pronouncing milli- centi- deci- deka- hecto- etc. Why is there with kilo- ? I wonder if those two things would help? Norm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 2002February22 19:39 Subject: [USMA:18353] Inacurracy of the original metre unit!! > I'm sure this topic has been discussed before but I have heard it said a few times that due to certain conditions, the original equation of the measurement from France to the North pole (or was it the South pole) for the metre was inaccurate!! > > I would be interested to know just how inaccurate!! > > Regards, > > Steve. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
