DEFINING THE METER

Adopted in France in the late 18th century, the meter is used today by much of the technologically developed world, making it an extremely successful example of both standardization and cooperation. However, the definition of the meter has changed several times. It was originally based, somewhat impractically, on a fraction of the Earth’s circumference and was later defined as the distance between two scratches on a bar of platinum-iridium alloy. What is the most recent definition of the meter? More… Discuss