E: /stoned
“The length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium.”
This is the actual definition, but it’s also pretty weird.
And here I thought it was that sick of metal in the wall in France when it is 21 degrees C
They redefined it a few years ago to base all units on some objectively measurable natural constant. Because that stick of metal might still decay or warp or something and you don’t always want to travel to France when you want to know the length of a meter. Much easier to measure the atoms and light you have on hand.
Updating the kilogram standard took them forever because you need really reliable force measurement instruments and very precise calibration
How many midi-chlorians does 1 meter have tho…
Found the vampire.
Hey, just because I am Australian doesn’t mean I am a crime of nature. That is just our animals.
Australia, where even the animals are criminals.
It was defined as
one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator passing through Paris.
The stick of metal in Paris is just so people don’t have to do measure the distance between the north pole and the equator each time they want to check their measuring tool.
Depends on the meter, dude. There are thermo-meters, speedo-meters, baro-meter…
You win.
Like half a dude.
Wednesday dude or normal one?
like a Tuesday one
Weird frog dude
Some dudes are longer than others.
look it’s not like there’s a titanium standard dude lodged somewhere in a vault in France, but I reckon we all know the difference between a short dude, a long dude, and a metric regular dude
“I see yer mother’s been tellin’ ya stories about me ag’in, boy!”
Meter‽ We are more than well acquainted.
The distance light travels when it goes one meter.
Take a really long rope and put one end on either pole of the Earth, and the other end on the equator. Use the shortest path, and make sure the rope is tight. No squiggles allowed! Chop that rope into exactly 10 000 000 equal parts. One of them is as long as a meter. Now you just need to find the right one.
Edit: more zeros.
Distance between pole and equator is… 10 km?
Good catch. I screwed up the zeros. Fixed it now.
deleted by creator
3 1/3 Subway sandwiches
About twice as long as half of its length
About 4 stacked house cats, or a bit longer than a 3-year-old.
take a meter stick, now cut it in half. glue it back together. a meter is probably a little bit longer than this since you lost some material cutting.
Hold one arm on your body and stretch the other one to your side. Now make your wrists/hands point forward. This is a meter.
Well, meter, like atom meter? Or like gas meter? Anti meter? You need to specify the type of meter.
Pentameter
Iambic or dactylic?
About this long holds palms one meter apart.
Only weird answers?
The truth itself is weird: The meter is defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.
Powers of ten my ass
The problem is that the meter is originally defined in terms of the size of the earth, which is in no way related to the speed of light.
Wasnt it defined using a wrong measurement of the size of the Earth?
Well yes, but only by a little. It was using ancient measuring techniques which were highly error-prone. Like running from one place to the next and counting the length manually. Shit like that. Still impressively close to the real size!
But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors, why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?
Like what the other person said, you don’t know the extent of your error until you have a more accurate measuring technique.
And you don’t just redefine an already-established unit. 😅 Rather, all the things that depend on the meter will be fucked up instead.
But it would be wrong by only 1% and it would make the speed of light so much more easy to use and remember
But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors
It’s not that they were allowed to make errors, it’s more like they made errors and didn’t know any better.
why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?
They may very well have made a mistake, and we just haven’t noticed yet.
The distance that light travels in about a three hundred millionth of a second. Wait, that’s just the actual definition.
