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  • whisper
    +1

    A meter is the distance between two scratches on a bar of platinum iridium kept in Sevres, France.

    • anonycon
      +3

      It used to be defined that way

      The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.

      • jmcs
        +2

        The kilogram is still defined by a chunk of metal in France that has the annoying habit of losing mass. Hopefully we can get a precise and reproducible way to define it soon.

        • Guilhem
          +3

          When you define the second everything else is pretty easy. TIme => length => volume => weight (a fraction of a 1m^3 of pure water at SATP with no special isotopes for example.)

      • whisper
        +1

        Ha, it's been a long time... I will now remember this one.

    • Guilhem
      +2

      At the bureau des poids et mesures, technically it's not in commun law france (even if it's really close to Paris), it's more a neutral ground like an embassy.