I’m thinking distance or weight. Where did a fathom or metre come from and how do I know that my kilo is the same as yours?
In: Mathematics
Lengths were usually based on body parts. A cubit for example was the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Hands for height of horses is another. Area was usually agricultural. An acre was the average distance an ox could plow in a day. Carats for gemstones was apparently based on carob seeds.
Governments often codified standards for trade purposes. The rise of science demand even more uniformity and precision. The metric system or form ofnit was proposed in the 1670 and was officially standardized by the french republic in 1790.
For the most part, somebody just creates a unit, and if it catches on, we use is.
One thing that you might find interesting is to read up on the ‘Le Grand K’.
Basically, the kilogram was (until last year) defined as ‘exactly the weight of ‘Le Grand K, which is stored in France. This causes some issues. 1. I can’t really go there and measure it, and 2, the weight is not stable. Since that object ALWAYS (pre 2019) weights 1 kilogram, as it gains or loses weight, the definition of a kilogram should change. For many practical reasons, it doesn’t, which is why there was an effort to replace the standard. Here is an interesting video about it (pre 2019), so this is an attempt to replace the standard.
This is how we got the English mile. Before we had Scottish miles, Irish Miles, English miles. But now we all use the same mile.
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