The metre originated in the French Revolution

Summary

The next time you pick up a bag of spuds from the supermarket or fill up the car with petrol, you can thank a treaty signed 150 years ago for the metric system that underpins daily life.On May 20, 1875, delegates from 17 countries assembled on a Parisian spring day and signed the Metre Convention, also known as the Treaty of the Metre.At the time, it wasn't uncommon for countries, states and even cities to have entirely different ways of measuring distance and mass, hampering trade and holding back progress in science.Loading...To standardise and unify these definitions, the Treaty of the Metre established the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which initially defined the metre and kilogram.Over the years, more countries signed the Treaty of the Metre, including Australia in November 1947.A handful of other units of measurement were also included to form the International System of Units, the basis of the metric system.But the metre's inception predates the treaty that bears its name by nearly 100 years.And its story begins during the French Revolution.The metre through historyDuring the late 1700s, revolutionaries shaping the new republic of France shed old traditions bound to royalty and religion.The Unity Festival in Revolution Square, as depicted by French artist Pierre-Antoine Démachy, was held on August 10, 1793 to promote the values of the French Republic. (Getty Images: Philippe Lissac)This reinvention included creating a new system of measurement.This system would be available to everyone, and be tied to fundamental properties of nature, "not from the length of the king's arm, or something that changed over time", Bruce Warrington, CEO and chief metrologist at the National Measurement Institute, says.So mathematicians and scientists of the time decreed that the length of a metre — from the Greek word "metron", meaning "a measure" — was equal to one 10-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator through the Paris Observatory.This ...