2002-08-29 http://www.americanheritage.com/it/index.shtml
Here is the page describing the Fall 2002 Issue. Couldn't find a place to write to, but maybe others can and drop them a line on how insignificant that "error" is now as the metre has not been defined that way in well over 100 years. But, then again, maybe this article was meant to be one of those humorous types. You know, where people opposed to the metric system, don't just come out and mean mouth metric, they poke fun at it in a humorous sort of way. So, really, we shouldn't be upset at yet another attack on metric. We should all be laughing our heads off. Ha Ha Ha ha Tee Hee Hee. I wonder if it is more than coincidence that two articles appeared recently in the press with a negative bias towards metric. Are Americans waking up and beginning to realise that they are really alone when it comes to use of FFU? That they are being flooded with metric products and American products are not selling abroad as they should because of not being metric? Is bashing metric in the media a rally call to fight the metre as a foreign enemy on par with Osama bin Laden? Something for sure is going on. Whatever it is, it will be a hindrance to any attempts by supporters like us to see an progress in the near future. John ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, 2002-08-29 21:50 Subject: [USMA:21975] Mechain and the metre > 2002 Aug 29 > The Fall 2002 issue of American Heritage of Invention & Technology has an > article about the survey from Dunkirk to Barcelona to size the metre. The > article, by one Ken Adler, reports that Mechain made a mistake in finding the > latitude at the south end of his survey. He could not repeat the value of a > year before. He kept this secret. After the death of Mechain, Delambre > turned in only the results of the survey, not the details. > > Adler makes unneeded remarks. In large type the article says "The meter, it > turns out, is a mistake." Adler speaks of Mechain's "duplicity". The > "mistake" is about 2 parts in 10 000, not enough to call for bad words. > > I quote from the end of the article, "Ken Adler is associate professor of > history at Northwestern University. His book on the origins of the metric > system, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and the Hidden > Error that Transformed the World, is being published by the Free Press in > October 2002." > > The error did not transform the world. I hope the book gets Prof. Adler his > promotion but I can not call him a good historian. > > ------------------------------------- > The article has a good picture of the "cercle repetiteur", which also appears > on page 41 of L'Aventure du Metre, but I can not figure out how it works. > Somebody, tell me how it works; what is repeated? > > Robert Bushnell >
