Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. This is one of
Speaker 1: those episodes born of personal curiosity in that way that
Speaker 1: things will happen in your world and eventually your brain
Speaker 1: will go, huh, yeah, I did that. Why is that
Speaker 1: a thing? And one of those things we don't really
Speaker 1: answer in this episode, but we'll talk about it in
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes because it's a Bob's Burgers thing
Speaker 1: where they're talking about the metric system sort of in
Speaker 1: Tina mentions that Britain still uses miles and she goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we learned about it in school, and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: why is that? And then something else happened with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine when we were traveling and we were
Speaker 1: talking about the transition from imperial to me when we
Speaker 1: were in in London, and so I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I should investigate how that'll happen and why some people
Speaker 1: have some things and some don't. So we have a
Speaker 1: little bit of that, but really what started to become
Speaker 1: interesting to me as we as I started researching it
Speaker 1: is that there there were a lot of people trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get everybody on the same
Speaker 1: page kind of literally in terms of how to measure things.
Speaker 1: But there are two guys in particular that are like,
Speaker 1: I have a plan, and so we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about them. There were these two men. They worked separately
Speaker 1: but simultaneously on the issue of standardized measurement. They're each sited,
Speaker 1: depending on where you look, as the originator of the
Speaker 1: idea of the metric system. This also leads to some
Speaker 1: occasional rivalry of what country is the birth of the
Speaker 1: metric system in One of these men we have actually
Speaker 1: talked about at length on the show before, and that's
Speaker 1: John Wilkins, because in twenty nineteen we did an episode
Speaker 1: on his books about the moon and his ideas about
Speaker 1: possibly traveling to it. Yeah, we're going to put that
Speaker 1: on as a Saturday Classic, not immediately but soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and today we're going to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: overlap with that episode because we just want to be
Speaker 1: able to explain without anybody having to listen to the
Speaker 1: other episode. How Wilkins got to a point where he
Speaker 1: had the interest, the time, the resources, and the credibility
Speaker 1: to propose a complete overhaul of the way England was
Speaker 1: handling units of measure. That's something we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: at all in the twenty nineteen episode because we were
Speaker 1: focused on his moonwork, which we'll mention briefly here just
Speaker 1: because of timeline. But then we're also going to talk
Speaker 1: about his French contemporary who proposed a similar system, and
Speaker 1: then how it took so very long for any country
Speaker 1: to adopt what became the metric system. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: we will talk about the fact that even though both
Speaker 1: of these men wrote about theoretical ways a universal system
Speaker 1: of measure could be developed, no one did the work
Speaker 1: to make that happen. As we said, it took so
Speaker 1: very long, for more than one hundred years. So John
Speaker 1: Wilkins was born on February fourteenth, sixteen fourteen, in the
Speaker 1: County of Northamptonshire, England. His father, Walter, was a goldsmith
Speaker 1: and his mother was Jane Dodd Wilkins. Walter Wilkins died
Speaker 1: when John was a child, and Jane remarried. Her second
Speaker 1: husband was Francis Pope. In this second marriage, Jane had
Speaker 1: another son, Walter Pope, who became a writer and an astronomer.
Speaker 1: Because John's father, Walter, had died. John's grandfather was the
Speaker 1: family member who kind of managed his education, and after
Speaker 1: some preliminary lessons at home, he went to a private
Speaker 1: school in Oxford, although John is said to have not
Speaker 1: found this especially stimulating. He moved on to the New
Speaker 1: Inn Hall for kind of the equivalent of what would
Speaker 1: be high school in our perception when he was thirteen,
Speaker 1: and then to Maudlin Hall to earn his bachelor's degree
Speaker 1: in sixteen thirty one, and he stayed there to gain
Speaker 1: his master's degree. He got that three years later in
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty four. He worked first as a tutor at
Speaker 1: Oxford and then as a minister. He had a parish
Speaker 1: in Fowsley, Northamptonshire, but realized being a vicar in a
Speaker 1: parish was not the right fit for him. He thought
Speaker 1: he would do better as a chaplain in a private setting,
Speaker 1: working for the nobility, where he would have time to
Speaker 1: also work on the various philosophical and scientific projects that
Speaker 1: he was interested in. He went through a series of
Speaker 1: these positions while writing his first book Yeah. He realized, like,
Speaker 1: if I'm a vicar in a community parish, I will
Speaker 1: also have to do things with the community that take
Speaker 1: up all my days. I'd like some reading time, please.
Speaker 1: So that's how that worked. I have to say that
Speaker 1: sounds like a good gig. There might be a reason
Speaker 1: that we have just figured out that a lot of
Speaker 1: religious figures are the ones that were advancing science during
Speaker 1: this period of time. That book that he worked on
Speaker 1: was published anonymously in sixteen thirty eight. This is one
Speaker 1: we've talked about before. It was a scientific work that
Speaker 1: laid out the case that the Moon could be inhabited
Speaker 1: and could potentially be inhabited by humans if we got there.
Speaker 1: He wrote a second edition examining the possibility that people
Speaker 1: could fly to the Moon, and then his next work,
Speaker 1: which was published in sixteen forty, examined the likelihood that
Speaker 1: Earth was indeed a planet. If that sounds weird, remember
Speaker 1: the Moon had only been seen through a telescope a
Speaker 1: little more than twenty five years before this, so scientists
Speaker 1: were still in the early phases of working out how
Speaker 1: the solar system was arranged and how celestial motion might work.
Speaker 1: They had some broad strokes, but details were still a
Speaker 1: little elusive, and so while the idea of Earth as
Speaker 1: a planet had been in the mix, for almost one
Speaker 1: hundred years. At the point of Wilkins writing about Earth,
Speaker 1: a heliocentric solar system was not a universally accepted truth.
Speaker 1: One of Wilkins's important contributions to the world of science
Speaker 1: was as a founding member of the Royal Society. His
Speaker 1: work as a private chaplain had taken him to London,
Speaker 1: and while he was there he often met with other
Speaker 1: scientific and philosophical thinkers of the day in weekly gatherings.
Speaker 1: This group was described in the writings of John Wallace
Speaker 1: as quote diverse worthy persons inquisitive into natural philosophy and
Speaker 1: other parts of human learning, and particularly of what hath
Speaker 1: been called the new philosophy or experimental philosophy. This group
Speaker 1: is one of the precursors to the Royal Society, as
Speaker 1: is a similar group that Wilkins gathered in Oxford after
Speaker 1: his next move, because in sixteen forty eight he became
Speaker 1: warden of Oxford's Wadham College. This is tied closely to
Speaker 1: his political standing, as he had sided with the Oliver
Speaker 1: Cromwell led Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and the
Speaker 1: parliamentarians had secured a victory in the second phase of
Speaker 1: that conflict. In sixteen forty eight. Wilkins was instrumental in
Speaker 1: growing Wanham, which gave him a great deal of notoriety,
Speaker 1: and he simultaneously grew his political standing, and Cromwell named
Speaker 1: him as a chancellor in sixteen fifty two. Wilkins also
Speaker 1: married Cromwell's sister, Rabina French in sixteen fifty six. She
Speaker 1: had previously been married to Peter French before she was widowed.
Speaker 1: Though his parliamentarian leanings were well known, Wilkins ran Wadham
Speaker 1: with an ideology of tolerance and fairly progressive values for
Speaker 1: the time, something incidentally that Wadham continues to be known
Speaker 1: for today. Because of this, even families with Royalist loyalties
Speaker 1: enrolled their sons there, and a lot of those families
Speaker 1: were or became close friends with Wilkins. Many of his
Speaker 1: students went on to great acclaim, including Christopher Wrenn. When
Speaker 1: Wilkins began having his own gatherings of intellectuals there, his
Speaker 1: group had a lot of crossover, both in attendance and
Speaker 1: in correspondence with the London group that we mentioned a
Speaker 1: moment ago. In September sixteen fifty nine, Wilkins left Wadham
Speaker 1: after Parliament appointed him the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge,
Speaker 1: but when the monarchy was restored with the return of
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second in the spring of sixteen sixty,
Speaker 1: Wilkins lost that mastership, although he did have a lot
Speaker 1: of supporters, both parliamentarian and royalists, who made the case
Speaker 1: that he really should remain in the position. His good
Speaker 1: name among members of the court soon led to new
Speaker 1: appointments and a rise to success during Charles the Second's reign,
Speaker 1: although he was not reinstated at Trinity. But it's during
Speaker 1: these years of turbulence that he worked on more formally
Speaker 1: establishing the gatherings of thinkers that he had been part
Speaker 1: of in London and Oxford into a more formalized society.
Speaker 1: In sixteen sixty he was appointed chairman by his peers
Speaker 1: of the new group, referred to as a quote College
Speaker 1: for the promotion of physico mathematical experimental learning. The King
Speaker 1: not only approved the society's founding, he also wanted to
Speaker 1: be a member, and in July sixty sixty two, the
Speaker 1: Royal Society was officially incorporated. Wilkins served as the first
Speaker 1: secretary of the newly founded society throughout the sixteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Wilkins was busy moving in the scientific circles of England,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like having a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 1: John Evelyn wrote of him in his diary pretty often.
Speaker 1: One entry from July of sixteen fifty four offers a
Speaker 1: pretty good sketch of where Wilkins was and his life.
Speaker 1: Quote thirteenth July sixteen fifty four. We all dined at
Speaker 1: that most obliging and universally curious doctor Wilkins's at Wadham College.
Speaker 1: He was the first who showed me the transparent apiaries
Speaker 1: which he had built like castles and palaces, and so
Speaker 1: ordered them one upon another as to take the honey
Speaker 1: without destroying the bees. These were adorned with a variety
Speaker 1: of dials, little statues, veins, et cetera. And he was
Speaker 1: so abundantly civil, finding me pleased with them, to present
Speaker 1: me with one of the hives which he had empty,
Speaker 1: which I afterward had in my garden at Says Court,
Speaker 1: where it continued many years, and which his Majesty came
Speaker 1: on purpose to see and contemplate with much satisfaction. He
Speaker 1: had also contrived a hollow statue which gave a voice
Speaker 1: and uttered words by a long concealed pipe that went
Speaker 1: into its mouth while one speaks through it at a
Speaker 1: good distance. He had above in his lodgings and gallery
Speaker 1: a variety of shadows, dials, perspectives, and many other artificial,
Speaker 1: mathematical and magical curiosities. A way wiser, a thermometer, a
Speaker 1: monstrous magnet, conic, and other sections, a balance on a
Speaker 1: demi circle, most of them his own. Evelyn's accounts also
Speaker 1: showed that Wilkins was still working as a minister quote
Speaker 1: tenth February sixteen fifty six. I heard doctor Wilkins preach
Speaker 1: before the Lord Mayor in Saint Paul's showing how obedience
Speaker 1: was preferable to sacrifice. He was a most obliging person
Speaker 1: who had married the Protector's sister, and took great pains
Speaker 1: to preserve the universities from the ignorant, sacrilegious commanders and
Speaker 1: soldiers who would fain have demolished all places and persons
Speaker 1: that pretended to learning. Samuel Peeps also mentioned Wilkins with
Speaker 1: some frequency, but doesn't appear to have been wowed by
Speaker 1: him as a preacher. In February sixteen sixty four, he
Speaker 1: wrote quote twelfth Lord's Day up and to church to
Speaker 1: Saint Lawrence to hear doctor Wilkins, the great scholar for
Speaker 1: a curiosity, I having never heard him, but was not
Speaker 1: satisfied with him at all. The two men did appear
Speaker 1: to become friends despite this early disinterest on Peeps's part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're kind of a letdown. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Wilkins's writing about how a standardized way to
Speaker 1: measure things might be devised, But first you will take
Speaker 1: a little sponsor break. During the sixteen sixties, Wilkins worked
Speaker 1: on a proposal to overhaul the messy way that things
Speaker 1: were measured and install a universal approach to it. He
Speaker 1: included this in a writing in which he called for
Speaker 1: the development of a universal language that people should use
Speaker 1: in addition to their own native language to make science,
Speaker 1: international relations, in global trade simpler. That work, titled an
Speaker 1: Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, included
Speaker 1: a section on measures, in which he wrote, quote, the
Speaker 1: several nations of the world do not more differ in
Speaker 1: their languages than in the various kinds and proportions of
Speaker 1: these measures. And it is not without great difficulty that
Speaker 1: the measures observed by all those nations who traffic together
Speaker 1: are reduced to that which is commonly known and received
Speaker 1: by any one of them, which labor would be much
Speaker 1: abbreviated if they were all of them fixed to and
Speaker 1: one certain standard. Wilkins actually thought this new system should
Speaker 1: be an octal numbering system that is based on eight.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about this in the behind the scenes, but
Speaker 1: it breaks my brain to think about it a little bit.
Speaker 1: He also concedes, though, that nobody will likely adopt that system,
Speaker 1: and that the decimal approach is heavily favored. He discusses
Speaker 1: that using a measuring system based on the division of
Speaker 1: degrees on the Earth would be impractical and eventually settles
Speaker 1: on the pendulum as the best approach. He credits Christopher
Speaker 1: Wren with coming up with the idea, and here's how
Speaker 1: he described this quote. The most probable way for the
Speaker 1: affecting of this is that which was first suggested by
Speaker 1: doctor Christopher Wren, namely by vibration of a pendulum, time
Speaker 1: itself being a natural measure depending upon a revolution of
Speaker 1: the heaven or the earth, which is supposed to be
Speaker 1: everywhere equal and uniform. If any way could be found
Speaker 1: out to make longitude commensurate to time. This might be
Speaker 1: the foundation of a natural standard. If you're thinking, I
Speaker 1: know there are some flaws in that, we're getting to that.
Speaker 1: Obviously there can be pendulums of differing links. Wilkins thought
Speaker 1: that a pendulum with a half beat of one second
Speaker 1: was the perfect unit to use, which he called a standard.
Speaker 1: That half beat or half period is the time it
Speaker 1: takes for the pendulum to swing from one extreme to
Speaker 1: the other. And then he kind of describes how anyone
Speaker 1: could set up their own ruler, essentially by hanging a
Speaker 1: ball on the end of a string that has no
Speaker 1: stretch and then carefully calibrating it so its natural swing
Speaker 1: takes one second. He continues, quote, Let this length therefore
Speaker 1: be called the standard. Let one tenth of it be
Speaker 1: called a foot, one tenth of a foot, an inch,
Speaker 1: one tenth of an inch a line, and so upward
Speaker 1: ten standards should be a perch, ten perches, a furlong,
Speaker 1: ten furlongs, a mile, ten miles, a league, etc. He
Speaker 1: goes on to explain how the same approach could be
Speaker 1: applied to volume. Quote, and so for measures of capacity,
Speaker 1: the cubicle content of the standard may be called the bushel,
Speaker 1: the tenth part of the bushel, the peck, the tenth
Speaker 1: part of a peck a court, and the tenth of
Speaker 1: that a pint, And so for as many other measures
Speaker 1: upwards as shall be thought expedient for use. He also
Speaker 1: included similar explanatory systems for weight and even money. But
Speaker 1: Wilkins wasn't saying this was how things should be done.
Speaker 1: He said, at the end of all of his proposed
Speaker 1: ways to measure things, quote I mention these particulars not
Speaker 1: out of any hope or expectation that the world will
Speaker 1: ever make use of them, but only to show the
Speaker 1: possibility of reducing all measures to one determined certainty. This
Speaker 1: was the last book Wilkins published in his lifetime. There
Speaker 1: were others, but they came out posthumously. The same year
Speaker 1: that this book came out, he was made Bishop of Chester,
Speaker 1: and he served in that role until his death four
Speaker 1: years later in November of sixteen seventy two. In France,
Speaker 1: another religious man with a serious interest in science also
Speaker 1: worked on the idea of a universal approach to measurement
Speaker 1: during the sixteen sixties. That was Gabrielle Muton. We don't
Speaker 1: know as much about his early life as we do
Speaker 1: about Wilkins. Mouton was born in Lyon, France, in sixteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: He lived there his entire life. When he was four
Speaker 1: years old, he joined the children's choir of Saint Paul's
Speaker 1: Church in Leon, and you could also say he stayed
Speaker 1: there his whole life. He remained deeply involved with Saint
Speaker 1: Paul's and it ultimately became the place where he worked.
Speaker 1: After receiving his degree in theology and taking holy orders,
Speaker 1: he was given the title of Vaquier perpetuel at Saint Paul's,
Speaker 1: literally the permanent Minister. He received his divinity degree in
Speaker 1: the sixteen forties and worked as a spiritual and community
Speaker 1: leader there for almost five decades. During his time as
Speaker 1: a theology student, Gabriel had also developed a strong affinity
Speaker 1: for mathematics and astronomy, and he studied those on his
Speaker 1: own time, and then when his formal education ended, he
Speaker 1: continued to work on his own projects in these areas
Speaker 1: of interest, and it is through this work that he's
Speaker 1: known today. In sixteen seventy, so, two years after Wilkins
Speaker 1: wrote out his version of a possible unifying system of measurement,
Speaker 1: Mouton wrote up his idea to solve the problem. Although
Speaker 1: Wilkins thought that using the measurement of the Earth as
Speaker 1: a basis was problematic, Muton thought it was the right solution.
Speaker 1: He wrote a paper about it, which translates to observations
Speaker 1: of the apparent diameter of the Sun and Moon, and
Speaker 1: he shared the methods he had developed to calculate the
Speaker 1: size of a celestial body. His estimate of the Sun's
Speaker 1: diameter was quite accurate, and he also put forth the
Speaker 1: idea that a fraction of the Earth's meridian should be
Speaker 1: used as the basis of a system of measurement. But
Speaker 1: Mouton did not abandon the pendulum. He figured out that
Speaker 1: a pendulum that had a half beat of one second
Speaker 1: at a given latitude would not work the same at
Speaker 1: a different latitude. The length would have to be different.
Speaker 1: That means you couldn't use that. That's because coriolis force,
Speaker 1: which would not be named until the twentieth century after
Speaker 1: French engineer gesbarg Corioli shifts the way a pendulum moves
Speaker 1: as the Earth rotates. In the northern hemisphere, a pendulum
Speaker 1: moves slightly to the right each time it swings, and
Speaker 1: in the southern hemisphere slightly to the left, shifting the
Speaker 1: length of the pendulum swing. The slight difference in the
Speaker 1: Earth's radius as you move toward either pole also has
Speaker 1: an effect on gravitational acceleration. So while Wilkins had an
Speaker 1: interesting idea with his pendulum measurement, everyone would also have
Speaker 1: to agree on the pendulum measure being taken at one
Speaker 1: consistent latitude, so that doesn't really make it a universal standard.
Speaker 1: Mudon believed that measurements of pendulums at different latitudes could
Speaker 1: be used to calculate the Earth's meridian, and then a
Speaker 1: fraction of that number could form the basis of a
Speaker 1: unit of length that would be universal. This was a
Speaker 1: degree one minute of longitude, which he proposed would be
Speaker 1: called the meal. Then, like Wilkins, he gave a list
Speaker 1: of names for the fractional divisions of that number centuria, decuria, virga, virgula, decima, sentissima,
Speaker 1: and Milesimal units multiplied by the meal were the stadium, funiculus, virga, virgula, digitus, granum,
Speaker 1: and punctum. So here's an interesting tidbit. We don't actually
Speaker 1: know if Mouton knew about Wilkins's work or not. Wilkins
Speaker 1: was not the first person to suggest a pendulum for
Speaker 1: a unit of measure, although he was one of the
Speaker 1: first to really lay out how it might be used
Speaker 1: as a basis for a comprehensive system. But the concept
Speaker 1: had been kicking around Europe since Galileo first wrote about
Speaker 1: pendulums in the fifteen eighties. In sixteen fifty six, more
Speaker 1: than a decade before Wilkins wrote his measuring example out,
Speaker 1: Dutch mathematician Christian Huygens had invented a pendulum clock. So
Speaker 1: there was a lot of discussion of pendulums in the
Speaker 1: scientific community, and it's certain that Muton read about them,
Speaker 1: whether he specifically read will Dilkins's work or not. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people were trying to think of a
Speaker 1: way that measurement could be unified in one system around
Speaker 1: the globe, because it was very difficult for people from
Speaker 1: different places to communicate concepts when they couldn't even agree
Speaker 1: on what the numbers they might use in a paper mint,
Speaker 1: so to kind of zoom in a little. Even within
Speaker 1: one country, there could be variations and there still are,
Speaker 1: Like in Britain, a dry gallon means a measurement of
Speaker 1: grain and that was larger than a liquid gallon. As
Speaker 1: the US adopted the British system, we still technically have
Speaker 1: a dry gallon and liquid gallon. It's different measurements. So
Speaker 1: if you said you had a gallon of a thing
Speaker 1: and it wasn't clear if that was dry or liquid goods,
Speaker 1: those could mean very different things, so easy to get confused,
Speaker 1: and it still is mootl outlived Wilkins by quite a bit.
Speaker 1: He died on September twenty eight, sixteen ninety four. He's
Speaker 1: buried in the chapel at Saint Paul's, where he worshiped
Speaker 1: and led the congregation throughout his entire life. But even
Speaker 1: though a lot of the scientific community received his work
Speaker 1: with a great deal of interest, he still did not
Speaker 1: live long enough to see any of his ideas implemented.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we'll talk about the many steps that
Speaker 1: actually took for France to get a metric system set
Speaker 1: up and how that went. First, though we will hear
Speaker 1: from the sponsors that keep the show going. It actually
Speaker 1: took a lot of time and refining amongst the European
Speaker 1: scientific community to get Mutu's theoretical measuring ideas to a
Speaker 1: place that was considered workable more than a century. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, there just weren't real world measurements that
Speaker 1: verified his theoreticals, and even the tools needed to do
Speaker 1: so took some time to figure out, and then there
Speaker 1: were just also the usual issues of international conflicts. This
Speaker 1: slowed things down. Ultimately, France was the first country to
Speaker 1: implement the metric system, but that transition was not instant.
Speaker 1: By the seventeen nineties, France had a variety of problems
Speaker 1: with its measurement of things, just like a lot of
Speaker 1: other countries around Europe. It became such an issue that
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety one, after Statesman Charles Maurice to Telerom
Speaker 1: began a debate about the issue, the National Assembly tasked
Speaker 1: the Academy of Sciences with figuring out something better. And
Speaker 1: one of the ways they sought to ensure that the
Speaker 1: basis of their system would not have problems of variability
Speaker 1: based on things like location or custom was that it
Speaker 1: had to be based on a measurement from nature that's
Speaker 1: a lot like what Wilkins and Mutton had written about.
Speaker 1: It was decided that one ten millionth of one quarter
Speaker 1: of Earth's meridian, so through the polls would be the
Speaker 1: basis of the entire system. A different way to describe
Speaker 1: a quarter of the meridian is to say the distance
Speaker 1: from the equator to the north pole. Additionally, that calculated unit,
Speaker 1: which was to be called a meter, would also be
Speaker 1: used to determine a standard measure of weight using a
Speaker 1: cubic meter of water. So a leader is one one
Speaker 1: thousandth the weight of a cubic meter of water. Once
Speaker 1: this whole plan had been made by the Academy of Sciences,
Speaker 1: the Assembly signed off on it, and then it moved
Speaker 1: to King Louis the sixteenth for approval, and after meeting
Speaker 1: with a group of scientists and mathematicians, Louis gave the
Speaker 1: measurement plan the royal seal of approval. This is actually
Speaker 1: a strange part of Louis the sixteenth legacy. The day
Speaker 1: after he had that meeting, he tried to leave France
Speaker 1: as the growing tensions between the monarchy and its people
Speaker 1: threatened his and his family's safety. He didn't make it
Speaker 1: out of the country, of course, he was imprisoned, but
Speaker 1: he still gave a directive from prison to set the
Speaker 1: wheels in motion for a scientific survey to get an
Speaker 1: official measurement for the meter, and it was on the
Speaker 1: base of that directive that Jean Baptiste Josef de Lambre
Speaker 1: and Pierre Machan set out to do just that. They
Speaker 1: traveled in opposite directions from Paris along the meridian that
Speaker 1: runs through that city. They went up to Dunkirk in
Speaker 1: the north and down to Barcelona in the south to
Speaker 1: form the basis for this measurement. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a complicated thing where they went in those directions, and
Speaker 1: then they came back measuring the same way, and were
Speaker 1: meeting up to compare all of their stuff and then
Speaker 1: extrapolate their bigger measure. The work of de Lambre and
Speaker 1: Mechamp took seven years. It had been planned as a
Speaker 1: one year project. It is quite a tale in its
Speaker 1: own rate, and if you are interested in its twists
Speaker 1: and turns, including an error made in calculations early on
Speaker 1: that was covered up. There is a really fun book
Speaker 1: about it that is The Measure of All Things. It's
Speaker 1: written by Ken Alder. Ultimately, Delambre and Michamp did conclude
Speaker 1: their work with the length of the meter established as
Speaker 1: thirty nine point three seven zero zero eight inches, and
Speaker 1: from there various divisions of the meter were calculated, as
Speaker 1: well as those of weights. The prefixes for multipliers of
Speaker 1: the meter were from Greek so decca, hector, kilo, and miria.
Speaker 1: The divider measures took their prefixes from Latin so desi,
Speaker 1: senti mili. We mentioned in our episode on the French
Speaker 1: Republican calendar that when that ultimately failed calendar system was
Speaker 1: put into practice, it used a base ten approach to
Speaker 1: marking the passage of the day. Each day had ten hours,
Speaker 1: and each hour was one hundred minutes. Each minute was
Speaker 1: one hundred seconds, And that was tied to some extent
Speaker 1: to this idea of adopting the metric system. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a very popular concept at the time. In seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, France declared this new system the legal standard
Speaker 1: for measures. But just as there had been resistance to
Speaker 1: a new calendar, people did not want to suddenly toss
Speaker 1: out all the various measuring systems they had been using
Speaker 1: up to that point. Listen, change is difficult. I read
Speaker 1: one account that's suggested that there were actually people like
Speaker 1: from the government going to people's homes to try to
Speaker 1: be like, no, you got to start using the Napoleon
Speaker 1: tossed the new metric system entirely in eighteen twelve, though
Speaker 1: at that point enough people had started using it that
Speaker 1: the probably exasperated Emperor just decided people could use whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted. He was busy trying to invad Russia that year,
Speaker 1: he had other stuff on his mind. Finally, in eighteen forty,
Speaker 1: the metric system was reinstated as the official system of
Speaker 1: the country. It took a long time for other countries
Speaker 1: to get on board with metrication. Belgium, Luxembourg and the
Speaker 1: Netherlands adopted it right behind France, but it's been a
Speaker 1: very slow progression. Britain didn't get to it until the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, although even now there are some systems that
Speaker 1: have not changed over Today, you'll often see the statistic
Speaker 1: that there are only three countries in the world that
Speaker 1: don't officially use the metric system. There's being Liberia, mar
Speaker 1: and the United States. That doesn't mean that it isn't
Speaker 1: used in those countries, though. Elizabeth Benham, writing for the
Speaker 1: National Institute of Standards and Technology in October of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: made the case that the US is actually using the
Speaker 1: metric system all the time. Benham states that in the
Speaker 1: write up quote, it is impossible to avoid using the
Speaker 1: metric system. In the United States. All our measurement units,
Speaker 1: including US customary units you're familiar with, feet, pounds, gallons, fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: et cetera, are defined in terms of the SI, and mass, length,
Speaker 1: and volume have been defined in metric units since eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. The SI's influence is pervasive and even felt
Speaker 1: if most people don't know it. I envisioned US metric
Speaker 1: practice like a huge iceberg above the water's surface. US
Speaker 1: customary units appear to still be in full effect in
Speaker 1: actuality below the water surface. We find that all measurements
Speaker 1: are dependent on the SI, linked through an unbroken chain
Speaker 1: of traceable measurements. So SI in that statement, is the
Speaker 1: shortening of another name for the metric system, the international system,
Speaker 1: and an international system was what Wilkins and Mutaal had
Speaker 1: been after this whole time. Yeah, incidentally, Mutal's MIA was
Speaker 1: adopted sort of, it became the nautical mile. Oh, there's
Speaker 1: so much more of the metric system. This is definitely
Speaker 1: high level, But I really like talking about how these
Speaker 1: two men were really onto the same concept, and to
Speaker 1: me it's such a heady idea to go a fraction
Speaker 1: of the meridian, like what is that? Yeah? I have
Speaker 1: some listener mail related not at all to metrics, but
Speaker 1: to Mary Somerville. This is from our listener Catherine, who writes, Hello,
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy. You probably had a dozen of these,
Speaker 1: just in case not. I'm sending over a picture of
Speaker 1: a Scottish banknote which features recent podcast subject Mary Somerville.
Speaker 1: I've only ever got as far as wondering if she
Speaker 1: is any relation to current Scottish government Minister Cabinet Secretary
Speaker 1: for Social Justice Shirley and Somerville. Nothing on Google indicating
Speaker 1: she is one. I have not gotten a dozen of
Speaker 1: those two. I haven't done any research on that either,
Speaker 1: so I don't know three banks. Catherine goes on three
Speaker 1: banks issue notes here in Scotland, so there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different designs to enjoy. I especially like the
Speaker 1: one with otters. Yes, the cute water sausage animals. Now
Speaker 1: I can know a bit of context on the Mary
Speaker 1: Summerville ones too. They are legal to use around the
Speaker 1: whole UK, but harder to get accepted the farther south
Speaker 1: in England. You go fair enough when folks aren't familiar.
Speaker 1: But the typical protest is that's legal tender, which is
Speaker 1: another thing I've pondered the meaning of and not looked up.
Speaker 1: I think they are legal to use, not illegal to refuse.
Speaker 1: There are some weird rules I know in the US
Speaker 1: about what you can and can't refuse regarding tender, but
Speaker 1: I don't know them in Scotland or England. She included
Speaker 1: a cat tax. This is Nissa working hard. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the many hours of company. I listen while I work
Speaker 1: and then re listen to favorites on road trips, I e.
Speaker 1: Moonbeavers in the history of Margarine. Best wishes Catherine. It's
Speaker 1: such a pretty bank note. I have to say I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with this because she is a Domino kitty. She's
Speaker 1: black and white, and she's very pretty. I love a
Speaker 1: black and white cat. I love all the cats. It's
Speaker 1: pretty hard to find a cat. I don't enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Catherine. You are, like I said,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, you're the only person that
Speaker 1: send us a picture of that bank note, so I
Speaker 1: am deeply appreciative because it looks very pretty. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us and send us pictures,
Speaker 1: of your banknotes or anything else. You can do that
Speaker 1: at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on social media as Missed in History, and
Speaker 1: if you have not yet subscribed, you can do that
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you're listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.