Abstract
THE battle of the Standards is over, and we may say the Metre has gained the victory. The need of a new system of weights and measures to amend the strange diversities which disfigure our practice being admitted, the question has once more been started—Should we once for all found our system on a natural basis? The pendulum vibrating seconds in a certain latitude, was long ago proposed as a universal basis of linear measure, and the House of Commons somewhat countenanced it years ago, by prescribing that the length of the yard shall be determined by the length of the second's pendulum. But the action of gravitation on which the terms of the vibration depends, is subject to so many variations and disturbances, that the quantity sought cannot, even on the same spot, be absolutely the same at all times. The real length of a normal pendulum is almost unattainable, so limited is our knowledge of the force of gravity on land and at sea, A more certain basis for a natural unit has been found in the polar axis, the length of which, according to Sir John Herschel, bears a close relation to our imperial inch, and has the advantage of avoiding the many causes of error resulting from the physical peculiarities of the countries through which any measured are may happen to pass. But are our physicists agreed as to the real length of the polar axis, and would it be worth while to make any alteration in our weights and measures for the sole purpose of attaining some scientific correspondence between the unit in use and a unit founded on nature?
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The Unit of Length. Nature 2, 137–138 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002137a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002137a0