Technikatörténeti szemle 10. (1978)

A MÉRÉS ÉS A MÉRTÉKEK AZ EMBER MŰVELŐDÉSÉBEN című konferencián Budapesten, 1976. április 27–30-án elhangzott előadások II. - Zupkor, R. E.: A méterrendszer az Egyesült Államokban

Ill The action taken recently by President Ford and Congress has silenced delete these critics of metrication and has enabled the United States to enter phase three of its metrological existence and to join eventually the world metric community.

12 The next decade of transition will be difficult to be sure, but the groundswell of scholarly and industrial arguments in favor of the metric system after 1950 has convinced the government of both the superiority of the new system and the innumerable benefits which will accrue from the changeover. After 1986, all of the world's industrial nations will be linked together by a common system of weights and measures. FOOTNOTES 1 For complete descriptions of these weights and measures, see R. E. Zupko, A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures from Anglo-Saxon Times_ to the Nineteenth Century (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968). 2 Much of Jefferson's published research on European and American metrology is contained in Saul Padover, ed., The Complete Jefferson (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce Inc., 1943). 3 As an example, it was believed ludicrous by many of this period that among linear measures the foot contained 12 inches but the yard was 3 feet or 36 inches, the ell 37 inches, the perch 5 yards or 15 feet, the furlong 220 yards or 660 feet, and the mile 1760 yards or 5280 feet. These confusing and troublesome divisions were even more rampant among capacity measures and weights. 4 Jefferson believed, for instance, that the inch could be related to the length of a rod vibrating in seconds at 45° latitude. 5 It should be mentioned that some of these ideas were common to the English who, during this same period, were embarking on a program that would lead eventually to the establishment of the Imperial system of weights and measures in 1824. 6 Before this era, Picard had suggested in 1671 that a permanent standard of length could be established by making the foot (pied) equal to one-third of the length of a pendulum beating seconds at a specified location and altitude. In 1720 Cassini asked for the adoption of a geodetic foot representing 1/6000 terrestrial minute of arc. In 1735 three members of the Academy of Sciences—La Condamine, Godin, and Bouguer—measured a geodetic arc of meridian, finding the length of a second's pendulum at the equator to be 439.15 lignes. Within two years Lacaille and Cassini measured an arc of meridian in Europe with the objective being to measure accurately a line extending both sides of latitude 45°. The meridian they chose was Dunkirk—Barcelona. These measurements showed the length of the meridian degree to be 57,027 toises. Also the length of the second's pendulum at Paris was fixed at 440.5597 lignes. Finally, La Condamine, in 1747, offered his findings concerning the length of the equatorial second's pendulum as another possibility. 7 What happened eventually was that Napoleon Bonaparte introduced the metric system into Western Europe. In the period between 1800 and 1815, most nations sharing an eastern frontier boundary with France accepted metrication as a substitute system and several of them made it obligatory. By 1850, 12 nations had adopted it on the European continent and the South and Central American conversion movements began. Between 1851 and 1900 metrication advanced at its most rapid pace—46 nations opted for it. During this period the Western European and South and Central American conversions were completed and those in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Far East were initiated. Twenty-two nations joined the metric world during the first 50 years of the twentieth century with most of them located in Eastern Europe and the Far East. Since 1951, 11 additional countries have gone metric with the Near East having the largest number. Currently, 15 more foreign governments are committed to adoption and in several others serious consideration is being given to the use of the system. Only a few small, non-industrialized states are holdouts. 8 In a personal letter to Sir John Riggs Miller, a member of the House of Commons and