The 17th-century Roots of the Metric System

a thing? And one of those things we don't really answer in this episode, but we'll talk about it in the behind the scenes because it's a Bob's Burgers thing where they're talking about the metric system sort of in Tina mentions that Britain still uses miles and she goes, yeah, we learned about it in school, and I was like, oh, yeah,

why is that? And then something else happened with a friend of mine when we were traveling and we were talking about the transition from imperial to me when we were in in London, and so I was like, oh, yeah, I should investigate how that'll happen and why some people

have some things and some don't. So we have a little bit of that, but really what started to become interesting to me as we as I started researching it is that there there were a lot of people trying to figure out how to get everybody on the same page kind of literally in terms of how to measure things. But there are two guys in particular that are like, I have a plan, and so we're going to talk about them. There were these two men. They worked separately

but simultaneously on the issue of standardized measurement. They're each sited, depending on where you look, as the originator of the idea of the metric system. This also leads to some occasional rivalry of what country is the birth of the metric system in One of these men we have actually talked about at length on the show before, and that's John Wilkins, because in twenty nineteen we did an episode on his books about the moon and his ideas about

possibly traveling to it. Yeah, we're going to put that on as a Saturday Classic, not immediately but soon. Yeah, and today we're going to have a little bit of overlap with that episode because we just want to be able to explain without anybody having to listen to the other episode. How Wilkins got to a point where he had the interest, the time, the resources, and the credibility to propose a complete overhaul of the way England was

handling units of measure. That's something we didn't talk about at all in the twenty nineteen episode because we were focused on his moonwork, which we'll mention briefly here just because of timeline. But then we're also going to talk about his French contemporary who proposed a similar system, and then how it took so very long for any country

to adopt what became the metric system. Uh. And then we will talk about the fact that even though both of these men wrote about theoretical ways a universal system of measure could be developed, no one did the work to make that happen. As we said, it took so very long, for more than one hundred years. So John Wilkins was born on February fourteenth, sixteen fourteen, in the County of Northamptonshire, England. His father, Walter, was a goldsmith

and his mother was Jane Dodd Wilkins. Walter Wilkins died when John was a child, and Jane remarried. Her second husband was Francis Pope. In this second marriage, Jane had another son, Walter Pope, who became a writer and an astronomer. Because John's father, Walter, had died. John's grandfather was the family member who kind of managed his education, and after some preliminary lessons at home, he went to a private school in Oxford, although John is said to have not

found this especially stimulating. He moved on to the New Inn Hall for kind of the equivalent of what would be high school in our perception when he was thirteen, and then to Maudlin Hall to earn his bachelor's degree in sixteen thirty one, and he stayed there to gain his master's degree. He got that three years later in sixteen thirty four. He worked first as a tutor at Oxford and then as a minister. He had a parish in Fowsley, Northamptonshire, but realized being a vicar in a

parish was not the right fit for him. He thought he would do better as a chaplain in a private setting, working for the nobility, where he would have time to also work on the various philosophical and scientific projects that he was interested in. He went through a series of these positions while writing his first book Yeah. He realized, like, if I'm a vicar in a community parish, I will also have to do things with the community that take up all my days. I'd like some reading time, please.

So that's how that worked. I have to say that sounds like a good gig. There might be a reason that we have just figured out that a lot of religious figures are the ones that were advancing science during this period of time. That book that he worked on was published anonymously in sixteen thirty eight. This is one we've talked about before. It was a scientific work that laid out the case that the Moon could be inhabited and could potentially be inhabited by humans if we got there.

He wrote a second edition examining the possibility that people could fly to the Moon, and then his next work, which was published in sixteen forty, examined the likelihood that Earth was indeed a planet. If that sounds weird, remember the Moon had only been seen through a telescope a little more than twenty five years before this, so scientists were still in the early phases of working out how the solar system was arranged and how celestial motion might work.

They had some broad strokes, but details were still a little elusive, and so while the idea of Earth as a planet had been in the mix, for almost one hundred years. At the point of Wilkins writing about Earth, a heliocentric solar system was not a universally accepted truth. One of Wilkins's important contributions to the world of science

was as a founding member of the Royal Society. His work as a private chaplain had taken him to London, and while he was there he often met with other scientific and philosophical thinkers of the day in weekly gatherings. This group was described in the writings of John Wallace as quote diverse worthy persons inquisitive into natural philosophy and other parts of human learning, and particularly of what hath

been called the new philosophy or experimental philosophy. This group is one of the precursors to the Royal Society, as is a similar group that Wilkins gathered in Oxford after his next move, because in sixteen forty eight he became warden of Oxford's Wadham College. This is tied closely to his political standing, as he had sided with the Oliver Cromwell led Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and the parliamentarians had secured a victory in the second phase of

that conflict. In sixteen forty eight. Wilkins was instrumental in growing Wanham, which gave him a great deal of notoriety, and he simultaneously grew his political standing, and Cromwell named him as a chancellor in sixteen fifty two. Wilkins also married Cromwell's sister, Rabina French in sixteen fifty six. She had previously been married to Peter French before she was widowed.

Though his parliamentarian leanings were well known, Wilkins ran Wadham with an ideology of tolerance and fairly progressive values for the time, something incidentally that Wadham continues to be known for today. Because of this, even families with Royalist loyalties enrolled their sons there, and a lot of those families were or became close friends with Wilkins. Many of his

students went on to great acclaim, including Christopher Wrenn. When Wilkins began having his own gatherings of intellectuals there, his group had a lot of crossover, both in attendance and in correspondence with the London group that we mentioned a

moment ago. In September sixteen fifty nine, Wilkins left Wadham after Parliament appointed him the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, but when the monarchy was restored with the return of King Charles the Second in the spring of sixteen sixty, Wilkins lost that mastership, although he did have a lot of supporters, both parliamentarian and royalists, who made the case

that he really should remain in the position. His good name among members of the court soon led to new appointments and a rise to success during Charles the Second's reign, although he was not reinstated at Trinity. But it's during these years of turbulence that he worked on more formally establishing the gatherings of thinkers that he had been part of in London and Oxford into a more formalized society.

In sixteen sixty he was appointed chairman by his peers of the new group, referred to as a quote College for the promotion of physico mathematical experimental learning. The King not only approved the society's founding, he also wanted to be a member, and in July sixty sixty two, the Royal Society was officially incorporated. Wilkins served as the first secretary of the newly founded society throughout the sixteen sixties.

Wilkins was busy moving in the scientific circles of England, and it sounds like having a lot of fun doing it. John Evelyn wrote of him in his diary pretty often. One entry from July of sixteen fifty four offers a pretty good sketch of where Wilkins was and his life. Quote thirteenth July sixteen fifty four. We all dined at that most obliging and universally curious doctor Wilkins's at Wadham College.

He was the first who showed me the transparent apiaries which he had built like castles and palaces, and so ordered them one upon another as to take the honey without destroying the bees. These were adorned with a variety of dials, little statues, veins, et cetera. And he was so abundantly civil, finding me pleased with them, to present me with one of the hives which he had empty, which I afterward had in my garden at Says Court, where it continued many years, and which his Majesty came

on purpose to see and contemplate with much satisfaction. He had also contrived a hollow statue which gave a voice and uttered words by a long concealed pipe that went into its mouth while one speaks through it at a good distance. He had above in his lodgings and gallery a variety of shadows, dials, perspectives, and many other artificial, mathematical and magical curiosities. A way wiser, a thermometer, a monstrous magnet, conic, and other sections, a balance on a

demi circle, most of them his own. Evelyn's accounts also showed that Wilkins was still working as a minister quote tenth February sixteen fifty six. I heard doctor Wilkins preach before the Lord Mayor in Saint Paul's showing how obedience was preferable to sacrifice. He was a most obliging person who had married the Protector's sister, and took great pains to preserve the universities from the ignorant, sacrilegious commanders and soldiers who would fain have demolished all places and persons

that pretended to learning. Samuel Peeps also mentioned Wilkins with some frequency, but doesn't appear to have been wowed by him as a preacher. In February sixteen sixty four, he wrote quote twelfth Lord's Day up and to church to Saint Lawrence to hear doctor Wilkins, the great scholar for a curiosity, I having never heard him, but was not satisfied with him at all. The two men did appear to become friends despite this early disinterest on Peeps's part. Yeah,

you're kind of a letdown. Coming up, we're going to talk about Wilkins's writing about how a standardized way to measure things might be devised, But first you will take a little sponsor break. During the sixteen sixties, Wilkins worked on a proposal to overhaul the messy way that things

were measured and install a universal approach to it. He included this in a writing in which he called for the development of a universal language that people should use in addition to their own native language to make science,

international relations, in global trade simpler. That work, titled an Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, included a section on measures, in which he wrote, quote, the several nations of the world do not more differ in their languages than in the various kinds and proportions of

these measures. And it is not without great difficulty that the measures observed by all those nations who traffic together are reduced to that which is commonly known and received by any one of them, which labor would be much abbreviated if they were all of them fixed to and one certain standard. Wilkins actually thought this new system should be an octal numbering system that is based on eight.

We'll talk about this in the behind the scenes, but it breaks my brain to think about it a little bit. He also concedes, though, that nobody will likely adopt that system, and that the decimal approach is heavily favored. He discusses that using a measuring system based on the division of degrees on the Earth would be impractical and eventually settles on the pendulum as the best approach. He credits Christopher Wren with coming up with the idea, and here's how

he described this quote. The most probable way for the affecting of this is that which was first suggested by doctor Christopher Wren, namely by vibration of a pendulum, time itself being a natural measure depending upon a revolution of the heaven or the earth, which is supposed to be everywhere equal and uniform. If any way could be found out to make longitude commensurate to time. This might be

the foundation of a natural standard. If you're thinking, I know there are some flaws in that, we're getting to that. Obviously there can be pendulums of differing links. Wilkins thought that a pendulum with a half beat of one second was the perfect unit to use, which he called a standard. That half beat or half period is the time it takes for the pendulum to swing from one extreme to

the other. And then he kind of describes how anyone could set up their own ruler, essentially by hanging a ball on the end of a string that has no stretch and then carefully calibrating it so its natural swing takes one second. He continues, quote, Let this length therefore

be called the standard. Let one tenth of it be called a foot, one tenth of a foot, an inch, one tenth of an inch a line, and so upward ten standards should be a perch, ten perches, a furlong, ten furlongs, a mile, ten miles, a league, etc. He goes on to explain how the same approach could be

applied to volume. Quote, and so for measures of capacity, the cubicle content of the standard may be called the bushel, the tenth part of the bushel, the peck, the tenth part of a peck a court, and the tenth of that a pint, And so for as many other measures upwards as shall be thought expedient for use. He also included similar explanatory systems for weight and even money. But Wilkins wasn't saying this was how things should be done.

He said, at the end of all of his proposed ways to measure things, quote I mention these particulars not out of any hope or expectation that the world will ever make use of them, but only to show the possibility of reducing all measures to one determined certainty. This was the last book Wilkins published in his lifetime. There were others, but they came out posthumously. The same year that this book came out, he was made Bishop of Chester, and he served in that role until his death four

years later in November of sixteen seventy two. In France, another religious man with a serious interest in science also worked on the idea of a universal approach to measurement during the sixteen sixties. That was Gabrielle Muton. We don't know as much about his early life as we do about Wilkins. Mouton was born in Lyon, France, in sixteen eighteen.

He lived there his entire life. When he was four years old, he joined the children's choir of Saint Paul's Church in Leon, and you could also say he stayed there his whole life. He remained deeply involved with Saint Paul's and it ultimately became the place where he worked. After receiving his degree in theology and taking holy orders, he was given the title of Vaquier perpetuel at Saint Paul's,

literally the permanent Minister. He received his divinity degree in the sixteen forties and worked as a spiritual and community leader there for almost five decades. During his time as a theology student, Gabriel had also developed a strong affinity for mathematics and astronomy, and he studied those on his own time, and then when his formal education ended, he continued to work on his own projects in these areas of interest, and it is through this work that he's

known today. In sixteen seventy, so, two years after Wilkins wrote out his version of a possible unifying system of measurement, Mouton wrote up his idea to solve the problem. Although Wilkins thought that using the measurement of the Earth as a basis was problematic, Muton thought it was the right solution. He wrote a paper about it, which translates to observations of the apparent diameter of the Sun and Moon, and he shared the methods he had developed to calculate the

size of a celestial body. His estimate of the Sun's diameter was quite accurate, and he also put forth the idea that a fraction of the Earth's meridian should be used as the basis of a system of measurement. But Mouton did not abandon the pendulum. He figured out that a pendulum that had a half beat of one second at a given latitude would not work the same at a different latitude. The length would have to be different.

That means you couldn't use that. That's because coriolis force, which would not be named until the twentieth century after French engineer gesbarg Corioli shifts the way a pendulum moves as the Earth rotates. In the northern hemisphere, a pendulum moves slightly to the right each time it swings, and in the southern hemisphere slightly to the left, shifting the length of the pendulum swing. The slight difference in the Earth's radius as you move toward either pole also has

an effect on gravitational acceleration. So while Wilkins had an interesting idea with his pendulum measurement, everyone would also have to agree on the pendulum measure being taken at one consistent latitude, so that doesn't really make it a universal standard. Mudon believed that measurements of pendulums at different latitudes could be used to calculate the Earth's meridian, and then a fraction of that number could form the basis of a

unit of length that would be universal. This was a degree one minute of longitude, which he proposed would be called the meal. Then, like Wilkins, he gave a list of names for the fractional divisions of that number centuria, decuria, virga, virgula, decima, sentissima, and Milesimal units multiplied by the meal were the stadium, funiculus, virga, virgula, digitus, granum, and punctum. So here's an interesting tidbit. We don't actually

know if Mouton knew about Wilkins's work or not. Wilkins was not the first person to suggest a pendulum for a unit of measure, although he was one of the first to really lay out how it might be used as a basis for a comprehensive system. But the concept had been kicking around Europe since Galileo first wrote about pendulums in the fifteen eighties. In sixteen fifty six, more than a decade before Wilkins wrote his measuring example out,

Dutch mathematician Christian Huygens had invented a pendulum clock. So there was a lot of discussion of pendulums in the scientific community, and it's certain that Muton read about them,

whether he specifically read will Dilkins's work or not. And a lot of people were trying to think of a way that measurement could be unified in one system around the globe, because it was very difficult for people from different places to communicate concepts when they couldn't even agree on what the numbers they might use in a paper mint, so to kind of zoom in a little. Even within one country, there could be variations and there still are, Like in Britain, a dry gallon means a measurement of

grain and that was larger than a liquid gallon. As the US adopted the British system, we still technically have a dry gallon and liquid gallon. It's different measurements. So if you said you had a gallon of a thing and it wasn't clear if that was dry or liquid goods, those could mean very different things, so easy to get confused, and it still is mootl outlived Wilkins by quite a bit.

He died on September twenty eight, sixteen ninety four. He's buried in the chapel at Saint Paul's, where he worshiped and led the congregation throughout his entire life. But even though a lot of the scientific community received his work with a great deal of interest, he still did not live long enough to see any of his ideas implemented. In a moment, we'll talk about the many steps that actually took for France to get a metric system set up and how that went. First, though we will hear

from the sponsors that keep the show going. It actually took a lot of time and refining amongst the European scientific community to get Mutu's theoretical measuring ideas to a place that was considered workable more than a century. On the one hand, there just weren't real world measurements that verified his theoreticals, and even the tools needed to do so took some time to figure out, and then there were just also the usual issues of international conflicts. This

slowed things down. Ultimately, France was the first country to implement the metric system, but that transition was not instant. By the seventeen nineties, France had a variety of problems with its measurement of things, just like a lot of other countries around Europe. It became such an issue that in seventeen ninety one, after Statesman Charles Maurice to Telerom began a debate about the issue, the National Assembly tasked

the Academy of Sciences with figuring out something better. And one of the ways they sought to ensure that the basis of their system would not have problems of variability based on things like location or custom was that it had to be based on a measurement from nature that's a lot like what Wilkins and Mutton had written about. It was decided that one ten millionth of one quarter of Earth's meridian, so through the polls would be the

basis of the entire system. A different way to describe a quarter of the meridian is to say the distance from the equator to the north pole. Additionally, that calculated unit, which was to be called a meter, would also be used to determine a standard measure of weight using a cubic meter of water. So a leader is one one

thousandth the weight of a cubic meter of water. Once this whole plan had been made by the Academy of Sciences, the Assembly signed off on it, and then it moved to King Louis the sixteenth for approval, and after meeting with a group of scientists and mathematicians, Louis gave the measurement plan the royal seal of approval. This is actually

a strange part of Louis the sixteenth legacy. The day after he had that meeting, he tried to leave France as the growing tensions between the monarchy and its people threatened his and his family's safety. He didn't make it out of the country, of course, he was imprisoned, but he still gave a directive from prison to set the wheels in motion for a scientific survey to get an official measurement for the meter, and it was on the base of that directive that Jean Baptiste Josef de Lambre

and Pierre Machan set out to do just that. They traveled in opposite directions from Paris along the meridian that runs through that city. They went up to Dunkirk in the north and down to Barcelona in the south to form the basis for this measurement. Yeah, it's kind of a complicated thing where they went in those directions, and then they came back measuring the same way, and were meeting up to compare all of their stuff and then extrapolate their bigger measure. The work of de Lambre and

Mechamp took seven years. It had been planned as a one year project. It is quite a tale in its own rate, and if you are interested in its twists and turns, including an error made in calculations early on that was covered up. There is a really fun book about it that is The Measure of All Things. It's

written by Ken Alder. Ultimately, Delambre and Michamp did conclude their work with the length of the meter established as thirty nine point three seven zero zero eight inches, and from there various divisions of the meter were calculated, as well as those of weights. The prefixes for multipliers of the meter were from Greek so decca, hector, kilo, and miria. The divider measures took their prefixes from Latin so desi,

senti mili. We mentioned in our episode on the French Republican calendar that when that ultimately failed calendar system was put into practice, it used a base ten approach to marking the passage of the day. Each day had ten hours, and each hour was one hundred minutes. Each minute was one hundred seconds, And that was tied to some extent to this idea of adopting the metric system. Yeah, it

was a very popular concept at the time. In seventeen ninety nine, France declared this new system the legal standard for measures. But just as there had been resistance to a new calendar, people did not want to suddenly toss out all the various measuring systems they had been using

up to that point. Listen, change is difficult. I read one account that's suggested that there were actually people like from the government going to people's homes to try to be like, no, you got to start using the Napoleon tossed the new metric system entirely in eighteen twelve, though at that point enough people had started using it that the probably exasperated Emperor just decided people could use whatever they wanted. He was busy trying to invad Russia that year,

he had other stuff on his mind. Finally, in eighteen forty, the metric system was reinstated as the official system of the country. It took a long time for other countries to get on board with metrication. Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands adopted it right behind France, but it's been a

very slow progression. Britain didn't get to it until the nineteen seventies, although even now there are some systems that have not changed over Today, you'll often see the statistic that there are only three countries in the world that don't officially use the metric system. There's being Liberia, mar and the United States. That doesn't mean that it isn't

used in those countries, though. Elizabeth Benham, writing for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in October of twenty twenty, made the case that the US is actually using the metric system all the time. Benham states that in the write up quote, it is impossible to avoid using the

metric system. In the United States. All our measurement units, including US customary units you're familiar with, feet, pounds, gallons, fahrenheit, et cetera, are defined in terms of the SI, and mass, length, and volume have been defined in metric units since eighteen ninety three. The SI's influence is pervasive and even felt if most people don't know it. I envisioned US metric practice like a huge iceberg above the water's surface. US customary units appear to still be in full effect in

actuality below the water surface. We find that all measurements are dependent on the SI, linked through an unbroken chain of traceable measurements. So SI in that statement, is the shortening of another name for the metric system, the international system, and an international system was what Wilkins and Mutaal had been after this whole time. Yeah, incidentally, Mutal's MIA was adopted sort of, it became the nautical mile. Oh, there's

so much more of the metric system. This is definitely high level, But I really like talking about how these two men were really onto the same concept, and to me it's such a heady idea to go a fraction of the meridian, like what is that? Yeah? I have some listener mail related not at all to metrics, but to Mary Somerville. This is from our listener Catherine, who writes, Hello, Holly and Tracy. You probably had a dozen of these,

just in case not. I'm sending over a picture of a Scottish banknote which features recent podcast subject Mary Somerville. I've only ever got as far as wondering if she is any relation to current Scottish government Minister Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley and Somerville. Nothing on Google indicating she is one. I have not gotten a dozen of those two. I haven't done any research on that either,

so I don't know three banks. Catherine goes on three banks issue notes here in Scotland, so there are a lot of different designs to enjoy. I especially like the one with otters. Yes, the cute water sausage animals. Now I can know a bit of context on the Mary Summerville ones too. They are legal to use around the whole UK, but harder to get accepted the farther south in England. You go fair enough when folks aren't familiar.

But the typical protest is that's legal tender, which is another thing I've pondered the meaning of and not looked up. I think they are legal to use, not illegal to refuse. There are some weird rules I know in the US about what you can and can't refuse regarding tender, but I don't know them in Scotland or England. She included a cat tax. This is Nissa working hard. Thanks for the many hours of company. I listen while I work and then re listen to favorites on road trips, I e.

Moonbeavers in the history of Margarine. Best wishes Catherine. It's such a pretty bank note. I have to say I'm obsessed with this because she is a Domino kitty. She's black and white, and she's very pretty. I love a black and white cat. I love all the cats. It's pretty hard to find a cat. I don't enjoy it. Thank you so much, Catherine. You are, like I said, as far as I know, you're the only person that send us a picture of that bank note, so I

am deeply appreciative because it looks very pretty. If you would like to write to us and send us pictures, of your banknotes or anything else. You can do that at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and if you have not yet subscribed, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you're listening to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a

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