4 ms·
It started with the grandfather clock. Everyone's clock pendulum needed to be the same length to have the same length of a second. So a meter also happens to (a
by hnuser123456 1y ago
It started with the grandfather clock. Everyone's clock pendulum needed to be the same length to have the same length of a second. So a meter also happens to (approximately, this was before we could easily be precise to several decimal places) be the length of pendulum that cycles at 0.5 hz (each swing back and fourth is a second) in 9.8 m/s^2 gravity.
- geuis 1y agoIt started with the French. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system The meter was originally based on the measured dimensions of the Earth.
- hnuser123456 1y agoAh yes, you're right. Another nice coincidence that a seconds pendulum is less than 1% away from 1/10 millionth the distance between the equator and poles.
- Calwestjobs 1y agotanach still does not acknowledges science. so does 1/10 millionth error even matter in grand scheme of things ?
- arlort 1y agoI think there were multiple competing suggestions at the time, the grandfather clock was one while the standard ended up being the French proposed one that you mention