A sign showing kilometres on the route of the first ’London’ marathon had its anniversary this week. For a century, it has pointed the way for anyone trying to retrace the steps of the original runners towards the finishing line at White City in London, where the 1908 Olympic Games were held.
At the time of writing NASA scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of soil sampling from their latest Martian probe Phoenix. Crucial to that experiment is confirmation of the presence of water. That precious substance essential to all life both here on Earth and maybe elsewhere. It also plays a big part in shaping the world geologically and meteorologically both here and possibly on Mars. What more natural a substance to choose for defining a unit of mass as was the case originally with the metric system.
I recently had the pleasure of visiting the splendid (Chinese) First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. Apart from the terracotta warriors, what impressed me the most was the way that Qin Shihuangdi imposed standardisation on his vast empire - including, of course, weights and measures.
The late Arthur C Clarke who died this month (March 2008) wrote what may be regarded as his most memorable non-fiction article in 1945. He was the first person to propose the use of satellites in geostationary orbit to form part of a global communications network.
http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/1945ww_oct_305-308.html
It was quite fitting that his orbital calculations and other details were entirely in metric in recognition of the future as seen from early post-war England.
The BBC have just published an article on their “On this day” series (15th February) about the year 1971 - the time of “D-Day” and the change to decimal currency from the old shillings and pence. A link to this article appears below. (Comment for Metric Views contributed by Phil Hall)
Metric Views’ attention has been drawn to an article recently posted on the “Weekly Gripe”. This links the decline in the 1980’s of the UK’s engineering and manufacturing industries to their failure to embrace metrication in the decade before.
A feature of the metric system, which distinguishes it from customary ‘systems’, is the use prefixes for decimal multiples and submultiples as well as the use of symbols for units. These were not part of Wilkins’ proposals of 1668. Roddy Urquhart compares Wilkins’ proposals with the modern metric system (SI).
New research suggests that the principles of the metric system may have been outlined originally in England. The BBC launched this discovery on an unsuspecting British public during the Six o’clock News on 13 July. Here is the transcript of the broadcast (obtained by Robin Paice). (more…)
The recent discovery that the principles of the metric system were proposed in England over a century before they were adopted in France seems to deserve comment on Metric Views. (Article contributed by Derek Pollard). (more…)
The introduction of metric units in the UK has been controversial and much of the opposition has been on the basis that it ‘betrays our heritage’ or is a ‘foreign imposition’. However as a schoolboy then engineer - who has used not just metres and kilograms, but watts, farads, joules and newtons (all international units named after British scientists) - I have always thought we should be proud of using the metric system.
Having learned more about the history of the metric or international system of units I am dismayed that most British people are unaware of the substantial contribution our scientists and metallurgists have made. In particular how 19th Century metallurgists in London helped make the first international kilograms and metres.
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