1. The term meter first coined in 1790 by Leblone for the fundamental unit of length. “One faith, one weight, one measure, and one coin would all the world in harmony conjoin” Miller, 1789 – address to England’s Parliament It took the French Revolution which proclaimed universal rights for all people, to champion universal measures, “for all people, for all time.” It took from 1792 to 1799, for Delambre and Mechain to measure the meridian from Dunkerque to Barcelona, through Paris. The meter was to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. “Conquests will come and go but this work will endure” – Napoleon Bonaparte

2. Countries (2002) not officially accepting metric system: United States of America Myanmar Liberia “Shall we mold our citizens to the law, or the law to our citizens?” Adams to Jefferson 1999 - A NASA investigation as to the cause of the 125 M dollar loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter determined it to result from one company sending data in Imperial units to another which assumed they were in metric. The difference between miles and kilometers was enough to send the orbiter 60 miles off course into a suicidal orbit into the Martian surface.

3. Initial measurement mistake (0.2 mm off) (not “exactly” one ten-millionth of ¼ meridian) June 22 nd 1799 – platinum bar cast 1889 – replaced by platinum-iradium bar 1983 – time it takes light to travel 1/299,792,458 seconds in a vacuum

4. Our choice of cm and grams as units puts us close to the center of things.

5. Note About Temperature Scales Fahrenheit and Celsius scales are not thermodynamic temperature scales, so do not permit measurements proportional to the average atomic and molecular kinetic energies of the substance in question. The Rankine thermodynamic scale was formed out of the Fahrenheit scale. The 0 o Rankine lies at about –460 o F. The Kelvin thermodynamic scale was formed out of the Celsius scale. The 0 o Kelvin lies at about – 273 o C.

9. ‘units of length, mass, time and temperature which are independent of special bodies or substances, which necessarily retain their significance for all times and for all environments, terrestrial and human or otherwise.’ Max Planck m pl = (hc/G) 1/2 = 5.56 x 10 -5 grams L lp = (Gh/c 3 ) = 4.13 x 10 -33 cm t pl = (Gh/c 5 ) = 2.38x10 -43 seconds T pl = k -1 (hc 5 /G) 1/2 = 3.5x1032 Kelvin F = -Gm 1 m 2 /r 2 c = speed of light E 2 –E 1 = h KE avg = (3/2)kT