Mildly Interesting

17388 readers

252 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

marcar@lemmy.world

Jimbabwe@lemmy.ml

WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world

Terevos@lemm.ee

205

How Pirates Thwarted America’s Plan to Go Metric (psnaudus.medium.com)

submitted 1 year ago by CaspianXI@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson wanted the United States to adopt a unified system of measurement and saw the metric system as the best solution. However, a pirate attack in the Caribbean disrupted these plans. Joseph Dombey, a French scientist carrying a kilogram and meter stick to demonstrate the metric system, was captured by pirates. By the time France sent another scientist to explain the system to the Americans, Jefferson was no longer in office, and plans to go metric were disregarded.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

One of the ongoing goals in science is to reference all metric units to fundamental forces. Basically, we want a system where you can write down everything you need to recreate all our measurement systems.

Right now, most are referenced that way, but not all. Last I heard the kg was being difficult. I believe the plan is to reference it to a perfect sphere of perfectly crystalline silicon-28 of a given size. Creating such a sphere is extremely difficult however.