E: /stoned

  • Einar@lemm.ee
    7·
    2 days ago

    Only weird answers?

    The truth itself is weird: The meter is defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 days ago

        The problem is that the meter is originally defined in terms of the size of the earth, which is in no way related to the speed of light.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 day ago

            Well yes, but only by a little. It was using ancient measuring techniques which were highly error-prone. Like running from one place to the next and counting the length manually. Shit like that. Still impressively close to the real size!

            • RandomVideos@programming.dev
              1·
              1 day ago

              But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors, why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?

              • Victor@lemmy.world
                1·
                5 hours ago

                Like what the other person said, you don’t know the extent of your error until you have a more accurate measuring technique.

                And you don’t just redefine an already-established unit. 😅 Rather, all the things that depend on the meter will be fucked up instead.

              • baduhai@sopuli.xyz
                1·
                5 hours ago

                But if the people deciding what the meter was at first were allowed to make errors

                It’s not that they were allowed to make errors, it’s more like they made errors and didn’t know any better.

                why werent the people deciding what the new meter was?

                They may very well have made a mistake, and we just haven’t noticed yet.