How were the units of measurement for distance created? More specifically, how were they decided to be a specific length?
In: Mathematics
Long before the metric system, measurement systems were based on some known distance.
Some community said “hey, from this rock to that big tree, we’re gonna call that a Spoigle”. Then everyone knew how far a Spoigle was, and could use that to estimate longer or shorter distances “Ukthar lives about 20 Spoigles away from me” or “man, that tree hahs to be like half a Spoigle tall”.
Similarly, smaller units of measurement were generally agreed upon in the same manner, often based on some important thing. Maybe the King’s Staff, passed down from king to king was a known length, and they’d say “this room is 3 staves wide”.
As such in ancient historical times many different civilizations had their own unique set of measurement systems, and through trade and sharing of information over time, some of them became more widely used, spread, and more popular.
EVENTUALLY as society progressed, we developed a more consistent measurement system, commonly known as the metric system.
The problem with those OTHER systems of measurement was usually in conversion. Even the Imperial system has this issue. 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1800 yards in a mile? Really arbitrary numbers, hard to dice up into bite sized chunks and translate to other systems.
With the Metric system, they defined distance with a known, measureable, and constant base. The meter, for example, is defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole.
This is true forever (relatively), and not something that changes. (Like a foot is the length of the King’s Foot. New king, new foot, bad unit.)
Then larger and smaller units of measurement were just multiplied or divided by 10, since that makes the conversions and math easier.
A Kilometer is just 1000 meters. A centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, etc.
The concrete definitions, and ease of conversion and use, led to the widespread adoption of the metric system (with only a couple holdout nations who still use the imperial system heavily). Someday maybe we’ll ALL use the same system, but only time will tell.
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