Posted by Peter Ceresole on September 16, 2004 at 19:51:53 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Ghastly Mess (was A Ransome Moment) posted by John Nichols on September 16, 2004 at 19:13:46:
The French metre is very close to the old French yard as far as I remember and I do not have the time to go get the book on this out of the library.
Actually it was based on a supposedly natural unit; it was originally defined as one forty-millionth of the circumference of the earth.
So now we all know. And much use it was; but it is now defined in terms of the wavelength of light and is part of a coherent and simply related system of weights and measures. That's the important part.