# Redefine the metre.

## Should the metre be redefined as 1/300,000,000 of a light second?   1 member has voted

1. ### 1. Should the metre be redefined as 1/300,000,000 of a light second?

• Yes! That makes infinitely more sense!
4
• Maybe! The adjustment mightn't justify the pain and suffering involved.
2
• No! That's just as arbitrary as the current definition!
21
• Excuse me! What's a metre?
0

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"It's time for another 'Good Idea, Bad Idea'."

The metre is defined as the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second...

I'm one for redefining the metre as "the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/300,000,000 of a second," as having a unit of measurement that is based on "the ten-millionth part of the distance from the equator to the north pole" is completely arbitrary and utterly useless (not to mention, almost exactly the same). The metre should have been rounded down the moment the speed of light was calculated.

Anyway, seriously - a metre should be 1/300,000,000 of a light-second, and equal to a yard/three feet. Then we would have two awesomely round numbering systems and imperial would no longer be a complete waste of grey matter.

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it would break all of our measurements though...

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yeah.

Every measurement would have to be re done. Scales, callipers, speedometers, etc etc......zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ.......

You get the magnitude of the change right?

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Re-defining standards is a tremendous burden. You have to either have an easier time measuring it, or the realization of the standard has to be significantly more precise, in order to justify doing it. Arbitrarily changing the speed of light to a round number does neither.

I think the desire for round numbers is akin to a foolish consistency, if you'll pardon the observation. If that's the only motivation it's an exceedingly bad one.

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true swansont...

if we did want to be THAT foolish, we could as well make 1 meter = 1/10^6 distance travelled by light and change the definition of a second as well.....

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No we should not change the definition.

What would be the benefit? That some scientists, surveyors, and engineers will then be able to enter 300,000,000 into their calculations, rather than 299,792,458

That would save them less time and hassle than it has taken me to write this message.

This type of change only makes sense where these types of conversion are done all the time every day such as yards to miles, or meters to kilometers

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You do realise that 299,792,458m/s is the actual speed of light and that the 300,000,000m/s is a simplification to 1 signficant figure.

Changing the definition would just change the system which everyone is used to with absolutely no advantage. What possible reason would there be for this change?

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This falls into the same class as changing from the decimal system to the dozenal (duodecimal); too bad it wasn't done in the past, but now it's too much trouble to change.

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That some scientists, surveyors, and engineers will then be able to enter 300,000,000 into their calculations, rather than 299,792,458
I'm sure those that use it regularly have a "constant" button pre-programmed.
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No we should not change the definition.

What would be the benefit? That some scientists' date=' surveyors, and engineers will then be able to enter 300,000,000 into their calculations, rather than 299,792,458

[/quote']

And only necessary if you need the calculation to be better than 0.07%. If you're doing a calculation on a calculator, that's rarely the case.

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If we were going to go to the trouble of overhauling the system of measurements let's go straight to Planck units instead of playing games with round numbers.

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If we were going to go to the trouble of overhauling the system of measurements let's go straight to Planck units instead of playing games with round numbers.

I'm game.

How tall are you in planck?

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i would definately want everyone to change to the metric system. im in canada and everythign with measurement is just so darn easy and u dont need to memoreize weird conversion units.

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Yes yes. As long as it gets me away from these god forsaken inches and feet and cups and pounds and etc...

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I'm one for redefining the metre as "the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/300,000,000 of a second," as having a unit of measurement that is based on "the ten-millionth part of the distance from the equator to the north pole" is completely arbitrary and utterly useless

How is 300,000,000 any less arbitrary than 299,792,458?

I mean, 300,000,000 in hex is 0x11E1A300. Looks pretty arbitrary to me.

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How 'bout we start out by having America - The largest country in the world - actually USING the metric system, and go from there..

Besides, what would happen if we find out that the speed of light is less than that, or more than that, even by "marginal" degrees? we'd have to change the entire thing all over again!

~moo

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yeah.

Every measurement would have to be re done. Scales' date=' callipers, speedometers, etc etc......zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ.......

You get the magnitude of the change right?[/quote']

Yeah, plus all the NASA calculations and all that would have to change and be recalculated and-- oh.. wait.. they get it wrong anyways...

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How 'bout we start out by having America - The largest country in the world - actually USING the metric system...

I think the imperial system could use a change.

I could never figure out how much Pokemon weighed on a Japanese card.

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I like the Metre just as it is, its a near perfect ideal of a unit.

as for lightspeed, its rare to never I use anything above 300 as a plugin for wavelength

300/freq=wavelength in metres

you only need bigger when you get into UHF and upwards.

what I Would change though would be this daylight savings time hour change, I say we should split the difference to half an hour and just leave it like that forever.

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..I say we should split the difference to half an hour and just leave it like that forever.

I concur.

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We can't change it anyway, so what's the point? It DOES make sense, but one can only see the results when it's too late, so what's the point? It WILL HAVE to change and WILL change one day, but definately not now, so, what's the point?

Make life simpler and work more efficiently. Co-operate. (Whoa, that's a good sig!)

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Hi.

The French had a plausible intention, but goofed big time with the development of the metric decimal system; not because of the metre, but because left the work unfinished and we are stuck to a senseless not decimal system in too many fields.

Being the worst of all, the time measurement. A second should had been 1/100 of a minute; A minute should had been 1/100 of an hour; an hour should had been 1/10 of a day as example.

The non decimal system is the one that is in need of a mission-impossible redefinition.

And who came up with latitude and longitude not being decimal? Go spank those.

Leave the metre alone and better think on fixing these really stupid non-decimal systems.

Redefining the decimal metre based of a non-decimal second is a very wrong idea.

If the British want to keep their liquid ounces, furlongs and grains, let them mess with their stuff as the urinal capacity of king such and such being the gallon standard.

How 'bout we start out by having America - The largest country in the world - actually USING the metric system' date=' and go from there.. ;

~moo[/quote']

You have to redefine your words too. America is a continent, not the largest country.

If you mean United States, it is a country without name, a collection of states as New York, Ohio, Oregon.... which do have real names.

Miguel

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How 'bout we start out by having America - The largest country in the world - actually USING the metric system' date=' and go from there..

[/quote']

I'm with mooeypoo. I'm so sick of using feet, pounds, and miles. They're so...uneven. Rather do everything in multiples of ten. When we figure out how to do this, then we'll be the greatest country in the world. Until then, go Russia:-)

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And who came up with latitude and longitude not being decimal?

People who had to do calculations without benefit of a computer or calculator. Base 10/decimal makes some calculations easier, but not all of them. Decimal equivalents of many common fractions are a bit of a pain.

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Decimal equivalents of many common fractions are a bit of a pain.

the answer? use fractions till the end of the equation and then round as necessary.

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