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0:00
A multi-million dollar spacecraft sent to explore the atmosphere of the planet Mars has been destroyed
0:11
On September 23rd, 1999, the $330 million Mars Climate Orbiter experienced what scientists call an unintentional de-orbitation
0:21
Years of work by thousands of scientists were lost in an instant because of differences in units
0:28
A module used to adjust the course of the orbiter was set up to have its input in metric units
0:33
but the data used for the inputs ended up being in imperial units
0:38
The discrepancy meant that the orbiter ended up too low at the end of its long voyage towards the red planet
0:45
and the Martian gravity pulled it to its hand. This is an extreme example of how measuring things differently can mess things up
0:55
A common standard is arguably the most important step that enabled the globalized world in which we live in today
1:02
Whether you use pounds or kilos, meters or feet, having a shared language of time, weight, mass, energy or distance is not only a prerequisite for science, but also for commerce, engineering and everyday technology
1:17
technology. I want to share with you how just a few thousand people overthrowing a regime in Paris
1:24
profoundly changed science and impacted the technology we use every single day. I want to
1:31
share the story of how the French Revolution started a process that ended up crashing a
1:36
satellite on the surface of Mars. This is the history of the metric system. A kilometer is a
1:45
We use measurement units every day
2:09
So much so that we don't often stop and think about how those units came to be and how recent of an advance they are
2:18
For the longest time, this shared language just didn't exist. At best, some measurements were common within a single kingdom or empire
2:28
For example, the ancient Egyptians managed to build extraordinary structures with incredible precision
2:34
because they had an agreed upon system based on the qubit. or roughly the length of the arm from the elbow to the middle finger
2:43
The precise measure of the cubit was inscribed in royal cubit rods
2:48
a measuring tool that architects in the empire were maintaining with extreme care
2:53
This measure was sometimes based on the physical characteristics of the ruler himself
2:59
or tied to how long it takes to do physical activities like plowing a field
3:04
this meant that Egyptian measurements would not be compatible with Roman or Greek ones
3:09
Interestingly, the same general ideas based on the body were used and the foot was typically a unit that was used in all the ancient civilization
3:20
They just were different lengths. By the 18th century, the equivalent of the cubit in Western Europe, called the L, varied from 40 to 95 centimeters depending on the country
3:32
In short, it was a complete mess. There were some efforts to establish common measures
3:39
mostly under major empires like the Roman one or Charlemagne. But those started diverging locally as soon as the empires enforcing them weakened
3:50
As the ancient and medieval societies were, to a certain extent, mostly localized ones
3:57
those issues weren't a frequent occurrence for the general population. How that was handled at a local level is something that you can still see in many old European cities, often at the bottom of churches and cathedrals
4:10
Now let's say you're living here in the city of Heimburg in the south-west of Germany
4:14
If you were going to the market to buy some jarl for some clothing, you could always refer to this
4:20
This would give you the length of the L in this region
4:24
this region. And if you were to buy bread you wouldn't buy it by the weight but by the
4:30
shape which you could check against those markings to make sure that the baker wasn ripping you off And for grain and other goods those markings could actually be used to extrapolate volume That way you could keep track of the exchanges you were making
4:44
and share a common understanding with the people surrounding you of the value of your money and your work
4:50
Which is perfectly fine if you spend your entire life here in Freiburg
4:54
and the countryside surrounding it. But if you were a merchant or a craftsman wanting to take your trade to a neighboring region
5:02
well, you would lose this instinctive understanding of what the units were
5:08
because they would potentially be completely different. Sure, over there you would probably find markings to have the local versions of what length and weight were
5:18
but you wouldn't have this innate understanding that would mean that you really understand
5:23
if the exchange you're making are fair. At best, it would make conversion difficult
5:28
and at worst, it would be the equivalent of speaking a completely different language
5:32
It's kind of easy to illustrate this even in today's world. Let's say I tell you I'm 1,79 m
5:38
This might be very clear and relatable information for you, or this might feel very foreign depending if you're watching this from an imperial system or a metric system-based country
5:51
On the other hand, saying that I'm 5'10 doesn't really mean anything naturally to me
5:56
Now, if you're American and we were to try and trade together without having our phones next to us to make conversions
6:04
you can imagine how this might at best make it hard and at worst make it impossible
6:11
You can't underestimate how bad this situation was before our systems were standardized
6:17
By 1780, you would literally find thousands of different measurement systems being used just in France
6:24
And France isn't that big of a country. Now, as you may know, in the 1780s, France decided that it was time to reshuffle things a little
6:35
including reshuffling the body parts of the king by separating his head from his torso
6:40
The French Revolution was a time of profound changes in the political fabric of French society
6:47
But it wasn't just political. As the revolutionary government took hold, they conducted a sort of survey of the country
6:55
asking people what they would like to see change with something called the
6:59
cahiers de doléances or grievance notebooks. Their own notebooks were collected in the entire country
7:06
to establish what needed to change to establish a more fair society. And one of those grievances
7:13
that came up over and over again was this issue of common measures
7:20
This was happening on the tail end of the age of enlightenment
7:24
This combination of its drive to understand the natural world with the wish of the revolution to escape the rule of all powerful kings
7:33
meant the time was perfect to establish a system based on universal and unchanging principles
7:40
derived from some form of science. The scientific minds driving it were also at the time conducting expeditions, mapping the planet and trying to pierce its secrets
7:51
while being regularly confronted with discrepancies in measurements in the different parts of the world where they were exploring
8:00
or also when sharing their findings with international scientists. These issues, perceived by both the general population and the science community, had already driven some experiments and ideas regarding the establishment of universal units
8:19
Thus, the meter was developed, a name derived from the Greek word for measure
8:26
It wasn't an entirely new idea. In 1650, Italian scientist Tito Livio Burattini proposed the meter to be defined as the length of a pendulum that would beat a second
8:40
This reference was widely accepted for over 100 years and was actually still the leading idea by 1789
8:48
The problem was that because of small variations in gravity, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere
8:54
well, the length of a pendulum beating a second is actually slightly different depending on where you stand in the world
8:59
So that would mean there would be competition to decide on where would that standard be based
9:06
So in 1789 the French Academy of Science sitting in this building right behind me actually decided that the measurement would be based on the size of the earth For them that was completely impossible to contest That was the same everywhere
9:23
And they chose that a meter would be a 10 millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole
9:31
From there, grams and tons and kilometers and micrometers could be easily measured
9:36
Now, all that was left was to, well, actually calculate the length of a meter
9:43
Previous scientific effort had been made to calculate the size of the Earth
9:48
so the assembly in France chose an initial value from a previous expedition to become the temporary official meter
9:57
And to spread the message, in 1796 and 1797, standards were created and shipped all over France for people to see and use
10:06
In Paris, 16 were created. Out of the two that survive today, this one is the only one that hasn't been moved in the 220 years since
10:17
So this is as close as you can get to seeing the meter the same way that you could see it when it was first revealed
10:27
The second surviving meter standard in Paris is right here on Place Vendôme, which is the luxury area of Paris
10:34
like Louis Vuitton right here and all like the jewelries and everything and you also have the
10:39
Minister de la Justice which is the French Justice Department and you get right here the second of
10:48
the two surviving meter standards but remember this standard and the others like it have been
10:54
made based on previous calculations to determine the size of the earth so while those were being
11:01
made, another expedition was sent out to determine the size of the Earth with more accuracy
11:08
Two French scientists had been chosen, Pierre-François Méchant and Jean-Baptiste Delambre, with the mission to calculate the distance between Dunkirk and Barcelona, representing a tenth of the
11:22
total distance. Based on that, the total circumference of the Earth could be extrapolated
11:29
and the meter as well. After years of effort using angles between hypons and basic geometry
11:37
to calculate distances through a revolutionary and chaotic France and also including a stint in a
11:44
Spanish prison for Méchon, the scientific work paid off. Sort of. It was later discovered that
11:52
Méchon had made a mistake, realized it, but had decided not to share that information with the
11:57
public and the scientific community. So the final length of the meter that became official in 1798
12:04
was actually less correct than the one they had used when establishing the temporary standards
12:09
like the one in Paris. Compared to the millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator
12:16
the final official meter is technically off by 0.2 millimeter. But overall it didn't and still
12:24
doesn't actually matter. The meter is a tool like language or money that works when everyone agrees
12:34
it does and understands it. At this stage the actual number had no true impact as long as
12:42
everyone agreed on what it was. But getting everyone to accept the metric system was a long
12:49
and winding process. Even France briefly went back to using some form of its old unit under the rule
12:56
of Napoleon I, before finally entirely and definitively committing to the metric in 1840
13:04
However, the units had already started to spread and were getting adopted
13:09
outside of France, a process called metrication. Some of France's neighboring countries started
13:16
adopting the system more or less officially as early as 1799. They would often start initially
13:22
by keeping their traditional names for units but adjusting their official values to be in line with
13:29
the metric. While exchanges and trades between countries might have driven some of the adoption
13:35
of this common language at the state and legal level, this effort was mostly driven by the
13:41
scientific community and in particular cartographers. All the countries wanted to have a better understanding of their borders and what they contained As scientists were named to survey their respective lands they would see the value of international units allowing them better collaboration with their counterparts
14:02
So, interest started growing in all of Europe for the metric system
14:07
But France had been leading the way, and they don't really want to lose its leadership
14:12
So, in 1875, it set out to invite all over the world, 117 countries responded to come to something called the meter convention
14:20
They signed this agreement that said that they would all use this new metric system
14:26
that led to the creation of the Bureau International des Poises et Mesures
14:31
International weight and measures bureau to this day this organization that is based in Paris in France is
14:38
still in charge of refining and unifying the metric system. The original standards, the original prototypes for the meter and the kilo
14:48
are still kept under heavy protection in this building called the pavillon de Bretagne
14:54
The International System, or SI, maintained by the BIPM, now includes units that allow us to measure everything on Earth
15:03
Distance and mass with the meter and the kilo, but also time, temperature, light, electricity and substance
15:11
In its constant quest for absolute precision, one of its key roles was redefining what the units actually mean using scientific natural constants
15:22
See, the researchers involved in the SI realized that the physical standards that were the reference for some of the units were slowly degrading over time
15:31
meaning that the platinum rod defining the meter or the chuck of metal for the kilo
15:36
were losing micrometers or micrograms with every passing decade. So it took on the work of changing the base meaning for the units
15:47
over the last 60 years and finishing only recently in 2019 with the kilo
15:53
As of today, a second is therefore defined by the transition frequency of a cesium-133 atom
16:03
Yeah, I don't really get it either. Well, the meter is the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in a fraction of a second
16:12
All of the key SI units are now defined similarly with scientific language that
16:17
might not mean anything to mere mortals, but are absolutely essential to the researchers
16:24
laying out the foundations of our modern world. Those precise definitions are what allow GPS technology
16:31
to track us, the screens of our phone to light up, or this very video to be transmitted and seen anywhere in the world
16:39
regardless of your local language or electrical grid. Standards are what allow this ultra-connected world to run
16:47
In a sense, the entire world today uses metric and the rest of the SI units
16:53
Sure, distances in the US might be in miles, as they are in the UK. But the United States has signed the meter convention and is part of the SI
17:04
NASA now exclusively works with the metric system, as does the US Army
17:10
And most of all, all the imperial units are officially defined against their metric counterparts
17:17
There isn't a physical standard for the yard that would be unique to the imperial system
17:23
Since 1959 in the US, the yard is officially and legally defined as 0.9144 meters
17:35
In one way or another, every single country on the planet now speaks this common language
17:41
See, the French Revolution was fueled on principles of equality and universality
17:47
Even then, the people understood that having a common language for units meant then that
17:53
no one class could take advantage of another by changing what those units that make up
18:00
the fabric of everyday life meant just on a whim. The sculptor who carved this rock which is now in the middle of a very busy and noisy
18:09
street in the middle of Paris would probably be quite amazed at how much of this work still
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