Talk:History of the metric system

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the History of the metric system article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2: 180 days

History of the metric system has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 12, 2013	Good article nominee	Not listed
October 28, 2013	Good article nominee	Listed

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 10, 2011, December 10, 2013, and December 10, 2016.

Current status: Good article

History of Science Mid‑importance

	History of science portal This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

‹See TfM›

Physics: History Mid‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by History Taskforce.

History Mid‑importance

	History portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Archives

Index 1, 2

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Why Lefevre-Gineau changed the reference temperature from the freezing point to the point of maximum density?

In the current article, this note gives three hypothetical reasons why Lefevre-Gineau changed the reference temperature from the freezing point to the point of maximum density. However, the first two reasons seem to be invalid: (1) Although Lefevre-Gineau changed the reference temperature from 0 °C to 4 °C, he still chose to perform the main experiment at 0,3 °C instead of 4 °C. (2) The temperature of maximum density can be used without specifying its value in celsius (4 °C), but that was not an improvement because the freezing point too can be used without specifying its value in celsius (0 °C). Ceinturion (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cassini's survey & missing info tag

I've gotten tired of repeatedly reading about the Brown Dog Affair on the main page's Dec. 10 On this day and this article seems like the most deserving replacement, except that the Missing info tag on History_of_the_metric_system#The_shape_and_size_of_the_Earth is a disqualifier. Since I am equally impressed and overwhelmed by @Sbalfour:'s energy in the Jan. 2018 rewrite, where exactly should a rescue start? "Below" I guess refers to History_of_the_metric_system#Meridional_survey. The tagged section though has a main article link, Figure of Earth and from there one discovers forking Earth's radius, Earth's circumference, Meridian_arc#History. It seems to me though that the tag could be removed if Main|Figure of Earth were replaced with main History of the metre. Sparafucil (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tle

Which country the metric system of measurement is originated that is also known as the S I INTERNATIONAL STANDARD 175.176.67.185 (talk) 02:23, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Work and energy section relevance

I could not see the relationship between the content of the "Work and energy" section and the topic of this article. For that reason I deleted it, but NebY quickly reverted me saying the development of units of measurement for work and energy is part of the history of the metric system. That may be true, but none of the section content says anything about that.

The content of the section does not describe the units that Joule used for the measurement of work and energy, although interestingly, the Hargrove source does mention the units he used when it says In describing the mechanical equivalent of heat, he monitored the heating of water in °F/pound and expressed work in ft-lb. Additionally, the content is mostly original research, and unsupported by the cited sources.

I propose removing it again as being off-topic, or at least replacing it with something that actually does describe how the development of units of measurement for work and energy is part of the history of the metric system. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me that work, energy, and more specifically power, are related to the history. Consider that the watt balance is used as part of the recent redefinition. The Joule experiments were part of understanding conservation of energy, which allows the unit to be useful. That said, I don't know that it should be the current wording, or position in the article. Gah4 (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In his New Determination of the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat (1878), Joule described how Hirn had preceded him and quoted Hirn's use of the calorie for work. On the other hand, I see Joule uses grains, degrees Fahrenheit, feet, bar and others in that paper but not gramme or degree Centigrade. He does use gramme and degree Centigrade many times in other papers, and I can't assure you he never does in relating heat and work. I agree this subsection of a section on the development of metric units to measure different quantities, the application of metric units to further quantities and the adoption of other units into the metric system could bear improvement. NebY (talk) 14:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]