Back when I was in high school, during the paleolithic age (the 1970s), the teachers announced one day that the United States soon would join the rest of the world and switch to the Metric System. I remember one teacher put a large poster on his door with the photo of a beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini. Next to the woman were three strategically placed numbers: “91 - 61 - 91.” These were the centimeter equivalents to the classic “36 - 24 - 36” measurements.
Thinking back, I now realize the poster was pretty much porn, and the percentage of high school boys who even noticed there were numbers on that poster was about 2%. (Or 23.9 liters in Metric, which also is the volume of hormones set ablaze by that picture amongst the sophomore class.)
Our science teachers spent a lot of time getting us familiar with Metric terminology. We learned the fundamental unit of measure was the meter. This totally conflicted with the definition of “meter” taught to us by music teachers, not to mention my friend’s uncle, who worked for the power company as a Meter Reader. So, right off the bat most of the class was confused. Those of us who rarely paid attention fared the best.
We learned a meter was exactly 39.37 inches, or to make it easier for us to understand, we could think of it as “sort of a yard.” The exact length of a meter is officially defined as “the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in one three-hundred millionth of a second.” (The time span actually is one divided by 299,792,458 of a second, but I suspect if we round it up to 300 million, few people will notice.)
That method of determining the exact length of one meter certainly is precise. However, we realized back then it would be difficult to verify with the tools on the workbench in a typical dad’s garage, so we decided to take our teacher’s word for it.
We learned a meter was exactly 39.37 inches, or to make it easier for us to understand, we could think of it as “sort of a yard.” The exact length of a meter is officially defined as “the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in one three-hundred millionth of a second.” (The time span actually is one divided by 299,792,458 of a second, but I suspect if we round it up to 300 million, few people will notice.)
That method of determining the exact length of one meter certainly is precise. However, we realized back then it would be difficult to verify with the tools on the workbench in a typical dad’s garage, so we decided to take our teacher’s word for it.
In that class we also learned that in most of the world the word meter is spelled “metre.” Being well-behaved students, we immediately started calling it a METT-tree, and refused to change no matter how often the teachers corrected us. (Remember a few weeks ago when I stated that 90% of all school-age human beings are annoying? Well, there ya go.)
The good thing about the meter, we were told, is that it’s length is constant; it will never change. “What if the speed of light decides to slow down?” an annoying student, who may or may not have been me, asked. At that point, our teacher reached into his back pocket and took a swig from a silver container. “Um, medicine,” he explained.
The meter’s constancy, it turns out, is a good thing compared to the original length of a foot, which in olden days was determined by the size of the feet of whoever happened to be the reigning monarch in England. Yeah, that could be confusing. “Hey Bob, I’m having a new pool installed!” “Yeah, how big?” “It’s 50 feet long!” “Oh, is that Arthurian feet or Edwardian feet?” “Uh, actually, Victorian.” “Oh, so it’s a kiddie pool?”
The good thing about the meter, we were told, is that it’s length is constant; it will never change. “What if the speed of light decides to slow down?” an annoying student, who may or may not have been me, asked. At that point, our teacher reached into his back pocket and took a swig from a silver container. “Um, medicine,” he explained.
The meter’s constancy, it turns out, is a good thing compared to the original length of a foot, which in olden days was determined by the size of the feet of whoever happened to be the reigning monarch in England. Yeah, that could be confusing. “Hey Bob, I’m having a new pool installed!” “Yeah, how big?” “It’s 50 feet long!” “Oh, is that Arthurian feet or Edwardian feet?” “Uh, actually, Victorian.” “Oh, so it’s a kiddie pool?”
Anyway, we spent a lot of time learning about meters, liters, and Derek Jeters. (No, wait. That wasn’t until the ‘90s if you followed baseball.) But then a weird thing happened. The U.S. ended up not adopting the Metric System after all. The reason why is fascinating, but we’re out of space now, so I’ll explain it next week. (Which is a good thing, because I need to go online and look up the answer.)
Very interesting
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