Martin,

Regarding your statement of February 26th @ 2.58 p.m.

"The most significant flaw in the Common Weights & Measures system was the discovery in the late 19th century that the yard was shrinking."

Martin, calm down.

The yard has not shrunk one douzieme since it was first invented 9600 years ago.

A yard is 3'. And because it is impossible for a foot to either shrink or grow, it therefore must follow that it is impossible for anything whatsoever that is based on the foot to shrink or grow. And as I just told you, a yard is 3'.
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Let it now be know amongst all good & true apprentice boys, journey men, & fellow masters, that I, Master Builder George Washington the VIII, do hereby now give my faithful & true pledge to the one apprentice boy kownst to all & sundry, as "Martin", that the yard will neither shrink or grow 1/110592000 douzieme, or indeed any other length, throught the duration of the entire two hundredth & twenty-sixth year of the independence to these several Free States.
_____________________

Now Martin, relax, and gently peruse site:

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

And topic:

Common Linear Measures

Once you've done that, you'll never have to see your shrink again.

P.S.
Martin,
As you grow up to be a big boy, you will find certain appendages attached to the bottom of your legs, and certain appendages attached to the top of your legs, shrinking or growing, from time to time. DO NOT PANIC. Stuff happens.

I would say that xcole's brain is shrinking, but since he never seemed to have one to begin with, the statement would be moot.

The yard standard made of bronze shrunk you nit wit. Once the standard has gotten smaller, there is no way to guarentee an accurate length.

BWMA, is there some way to get rid of this nonsense?

xcole was funny at first, but now he/she is just getting annoying.

I suppose we could always just ignore the posts.

Xcole is right in that the yard did not shrink - it was only the metallic representation of it that shrunk. The metal representation of the kilogram in Paris also shrinks, albeit by a miniscule amount.

>the yard did not shrink - it was only the metallic representation of it
> that shrunk

Err, no, the metallic representation WAS the definition of the yard.
What you're saying is that there was another, higher order definition of the yard, but we all know there wasn't any.

Ralf

Ralf: "Err, no, the metallic representation WAS the definition of the yard.
What you're saying is that there was another, higher order definition of the yard, but we all know there wasn't any."

Ouch ! That hurt !
Ralf, don't do that ever again: you just robbed the imperialists of an illusion ! ;-)

Whether the yard shrunk or ther representation of it shrunk is immaterial. The result was that the yard (foot) was redefined in term of the metre. Again, the US and UK could not agree on a definition. The US used a definition of 1 ft = 1200/3937 m, while the UK used the definition of 1 yd = 0.9144 m. There is a discrepancy of 2 parts per million in these definitions. Finally, in 1959, the US accepted the UK definition (except, I believe, for survey purposes.

The nett result is that the yard is no more and no less accurate than the metre.

The metre changed sizes in 1983.

Yet the Motorways did not shrink or grow!?!?

Steve,

The metre did not change size in 1983 - a more accurate definiton was found.

The definiton of the metre before 1983 (the wavelength of light emitted from a particular transition from a paticular atom) was found to be less stable than the figure derived from measuring the speed of light (even though this involved measuring both the time that light takes to cover a specified distance and the distance itself).

After carefully examining these facts, the BIPM took the best measure of the speed of light usign the old definiton and then made that the basis of the new definition, thereby ensuring that, withoin experimental error, there was no change in the length of the metre.

Wow, metricational governments would define imperial units to metric as if to undermine their existence, but not to mention that imperial pre-dates metric.

A foot is 1/6080/60/24 of the earth's equator at ground level (you know what a nautical mile is besides 6080ft (and I don't give a two fact monkeys of the 'metric definition' which is actually just what it is in metres))

In laymen's terms:

Day 1: I define 1 "Foo" as 1.5 "bar", +-0.1 bar.
Day 2: I redefine 1 Foo as 1.523 bar, +-0.001 bar.

The "Foo" did not change since 1.523 bar is within the window of 1.4-1.6 bar that I set on Day 1, I only described it more accurately. It's like looking at it with a better magnifying glass.

One has to note though that a statement of "This thing is 3.25 Foo long" did not make too much sense on Day 1 because it would have exceeded the precision of the "Foo" definition.
On Day 2 it does make sense however.

Ralf

Frederick,

that "metricational government" was the United States of America. It decided to base the definition of the Imperial Units on the SI ones.

Ralf