Re: Metric Converters, was Re: [TML] Every day it seems we're closer to Cyberpunk 2020... Tim 07 Jul 2016 01:51 UTC
On Wed, Jul 06, 2016 at 03:22:35PM -0700, C. Berry wrote: > Similarly, the gram is a convenient mass unit for some scientists, > but the kilogram is more convenient for most real-world uses, so the > latter gets treated as the base mass unit for a lot of purposes. The kilogram has been a base unit for the whole history of the metric system, though originally called the grave with unit symbol G. A prototype mass standard was manufactured to its specification. The original name for 1/1000th of a grave was a gravet, but a few years later the names "grave" and "gravet" were considered too aristocratic and dropped for political reasons in favour of a new name "gramme" and its power-of-ten prefixes. The fundamental mass standard remained the same, however. New mass standards were manufactured in 1799 and 1889, but were still based on the original grave (kilogram) unit. The unit "are" also dates back to the 18th century and the original French Revolutionary units. When it was originally developed, prefix naming from a base unit hadn't been fully established and units had individual names for some of their decimal multiples. Among these was "are" as a synonym for a square decametre. It survived while the others did not, much as the litre did for volume. - Tim