E: /stoned
“The length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium.”
This is the actual definition, but it’s also pretty weird.
And here I thought it was that sick of metal in the wall in France when it is 21 degrees C
They redefined it a few years ago to base all units on some objectively measurable natural constant. Because that stick of metal might still decay or warp or something and you don’t always want to travel to France when you want to know the length of a meter. Much easier to measure the atoms and light you have on hand.
Updating the kilogram standard took them forever because you need really reliable force measurement instruments and very precise calibration
How many midi-chlorians does 1 meter have tho…
Found the vampire.
Hey, just because I am Australian doesn’t mean I am a crime of nature. That is just our animals.
Australia, where even the animals are criminals.
It was defined as
one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator passing through Paris.
The stick of metal in Paris is just so people don’t have to do measure the distance between the north pole and the equator each time they want to check their measuring tool.
Like half a dude.
Wednesday dude or normal one?
like a Tuesday one
Weird frog dude
Some dudes are longer than others.
look it’s not like there’s a titanium standard dude lodged somewhere in a vault in France, but I reckon we all know the difference between a short dude, a long dude, and a metric regular dude
“I see yer mother’s been tellin’ ya stories about me ag’in, boy!”
Depends on the meter, dude. There are thermo-meters, speedo-meters, baro-meter…
You win.
Meter‽ We are more than well acquainted.
Take a really long rope and put one end on either pole of the Earth, and the other end on the equator. Use the shortest path, and make sure the rope is tight. No squiggles allowed! Chop that rope into exactly 10 000 000 equal parts. One of them is as long as a meter. Now you just need to find the right one.
Edit: more zeros.
Distance between pole and equator is… 10 km?
Good catch. I screwed up the zeros. Fixed it now.
deleted by creator
A bit more than 90 centimetres, a bit less than 110. Somewhere in that ballpark.
Okay, so, right, okay. Um. In German schools (and probably some other countries…?), many many years ago (possibly still today? or maybe it’s all digital now? what am I saying, this is German schools), the blackboard in every classroom was a large, green, rectangular middle part and two square “wings”, one on each side (as wings are wont to be…). They can swing in and out, providing extra room for writing on the outer side of the wings. Also for extracurricular shenanigans such as writing “[name] + [name] = SEX” in the middle, swinging the wings closed to hide the writing and then breaking out into hysterics when the teacher opens the blackboard to reveal your incredibly highbrow joke.
This type of blackboard is quintessential to my recollections about and concept of school.
Why am I going into such unnecessary detail about this? I have ADHD and possibly autism, I need you to understand what I’m saying and I can’t find any sources of this existing in the English speaking world and I can’t find an English word for those “wings” either. I can barely find a German one (“Tafelflügel”? I don’t think it’s ever come up before in my life).
So here’s a picture:
The width/height of the “wings” and the height of the middle part, that’s a metre. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Does the metallic edge count as part of the meter too or just the green surface? What if it’s so hot the wings expand?
Just the green. This is special German engineering high-tech space material whose name I absolutely do know but am not at liberty to divulge and that doesn’t expand (i.e. I’ve never experienced a blackboard being warmer than slightly cool to the touch).
Is there an ultimate ancestor of all boards by which you can detemine if your board actually has the correct 1m height? Do we even need such a board if we accept Constructivism?
Are you… are you putting the word of my primary school teacher into question? How DARE you?!
I dare by being the last row’s kid never accepting anything. You didn’t answer my questions, so here’s just one this time: How wide has each letter of Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz to be so it fits on the board?
E: Typo writing Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
Typo writing Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
If you can’t take this seriously for even one second and follow basic German Rechtschreiberegeln, you don’t deserve any answers.
Sorry, there was an
at the wrong place.
I’m taking it completely serious, do you?
5 letters
‘a meter’
5 = 6 = 1m
The distance light travels when it goes one meter.
About ten minutes, wait, what was the question?
Just about half as twice as much.
The overall length of an M16A4
I didn’t even know what a M16A4 is. Some US unit, right?
Yes, with the official M16A4 unit being defined as 1/100th the length between the goal lines of an American Football field.
It is a very US unit, yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle
39.37 in (1,000 mm) (M16A4)
I didn’t know until today that it was exactly one meter long, though.
You did ask for weird
Why does it have a overall on
About the size of a giant sea turtle.
Is it a cute turtle?
If it have been cute, it’s not a meter long anymore.
Try to piss as far as you can. Now you know how long a meter is.
But how do we measure the lenght? Do we have to find a way which includes the last drop? And what if I don’t have a penis?
You piss in the snow to clearly see the pee and the furthest drop counts.
If you don’t have a cock you are free to bring a dick you trust to the measurement. Just make sure to fill the form A38 beforehand and your designated piss officer will give your team green light.
Can some non-German person please fill out the A38 in English without translating a single German word of the A38?
Only weird answers?
The truth itself is weird: The meter is defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.
Powers of ten my ass
The problem is that the meter is originally defined in terms of the size of the earth, which is in no way related to the speed of light.
Wasnt it defined using a wrong measurement of the size of the Earth?
Well yes, but only by a little. It was using ancient measuring techniques which were highly error-prone. Like running from one place to the next and counting the length manually. Shit like that. Still impressively close to the real size!
But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors, why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?
Like what the other person said, you don’t know the extent of your error until you have a more accurate measuring technique.
And you don’t just redefine an already-established unit. 😅 Rather, all the things that depend on the meter will be fucked up instead.
But it would be wrong by only 1% and it would make the speed of light so much more easy to use and remember
But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors
It’s not that they were allowed to make errors, it’s more like they made errors and didn’t know any better.
why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?
They may very well have made a mistake, and we just haven’t noticed yet.
