Sent: Tuesday, 2002-12-03 14:58
Subject: [USMA:23754] Re: CNN.com - Why
the metric system is wrong - Dec. 3, 2002.htm
Nat Hager III quoted Ken Alder's book, "The
Measure of All Things":
....
Yes, the actual length of the meter --
compared with what was intended -- is a mistake. But it's a mistake that has
"transformed the world," as the book's subtitle has it.
"That is why," Alder says, "Delambre and
Mechain's meter -- created 'for all people, for all time' -- was in fact an
error for all people, for all time."![]()
Denis Guedj in his "Le M�tre du Monde", �ditions du Seuil, ISBN
2-02-040718-3, wrote: (I translate)
"Delambre wrote: 'We see here the Barcelona observations and the three
seconds by which they differed from those at Montjouy...to conceal the
facts...Three seconds of angle!
"What was the impact of those three seconds of angle on the resulting
measurement? What effect did it have on the length of the metre
proclaimed with pomp in 1779? In 1993 M�chain sent to Paris his first
results at Montjouy. Not the second. It was with the first that
all the calculations were done and the metre determined; it was the second
results that were wrong. Conclusion: the error of M�chain had no
influence whatsoever on the metre!
"The proof of these assertions are at the Ovbservatory, where all his
manuscripts are preserved."
It now appears from satellite observations that the provisional metre of
1793, based on measurements made in Peru, France and Lapland half a century
earlier, would have given a more accurate length for the metre. The
survey of Delambre and M�chain was really to demonstrate the superior accuracy
of the new repeating circle theodolite of Borda.
Joseph B. Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8
Telephone
416-486-6071
