1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910698650203321

Autore

Giunta Carmen J.

Titolo

A brief history of the metric system : from revolutionary france to the constant-based SI / / Carmen J. Giunta

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham, Switzerland : , : Springer, , [2023]

©2023

ISBN

3-031-28436-4

Edizione

[1st ed. 2023.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XI, 81 p. 9 illus., 8 illus. in color.)

Collana

History of Chemistry

Disciplina

780

Soggetti

Metric system

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Decimal Ideas before Revolutionary France -- Reform of Weights and Measures in Revolutionary France -- Metrication in France and Beyond: the Meter Goes International -- The Système International d’Unités (SI) of 1960 -- Changes in the SI from its Introduction (1960) to the Explicit-Constant Revision (2019) -- The Metric System and the United States.

Sommario/riassunto

This book succinctly traces the history of the metric system from early modern proposals of decimal measures, to the birth of the system in Revolutionary France, through its formal international adoption under the supervision of an international General Committee of Weights and Measures (CGPM), to its later expansion into the International System of Units (SI), currently formulated entirely in terms of physical constants. The wide range of human activities that employ weights and measures, from practical commerce to esoteric science, influenced both the development and the diffusion of the metric system. The roles of constants of nature in the formulation of the 18th-century metric system and in the 21st-century reformulation of the SI are described. Finally, the status of the system in the United States, the last major holdout against its everyday use, is also discussed.