Dear All,
You will recall that it was the Marquis de Condorcet who wrote that
the metric system was:
For all time; for all people.
I have now found that Condorcet was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson
when Jefferson was ambassador to France in the 1780s. Accordingly, I
have rewritten the item for 1793 in the Metrication timeline. Here is
the item:
1793
The French Constitution was promulgated with the Marquis de Condorcet
as the principle author. Condorcet was an especially close friend of
Thomas Jefferson from the USA. Their friendship is logical when you
consider that Thomas Jefferson had played a leading role in forming
the ideas behind the Constitution of the USA in 1787. The Library of
Congress web site (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/
jefffed.html ) puts it this way:
Although Thomas Jefferson was in France serving as United States
minister when the Federal Constitution was written in 1787, he was
able to influence the development of the federal government through
his correspondence. Later his actions as the first secretary of state,
vice president, leader of the first political opposition party, and
third president of the United States were crucial in shaping the look
of the nation's capital and defining the powers of the Constitution
and the nature of the emerging republic.
For example, these words of the preamble are attributed to Thomas
Jefferson:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It also seems highly likely that Condorcet and Jefferson would have
discussed their common ideas for the system of universal measure that
eventually became SI, the modern metric system.
You can see this in context at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/MetricationTimeline.pdf
if you search for 1793.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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