• Chill Dude 69
    3•7 months ago

    Yes, algorithm-based standardization IS an actual new (and very recent) development of the modern SI system. But remember, the new definitions are indeed VERY NEW. The metric system originally relied on standard meter-bars and weights, which would be used to physically calibrate everybody’s meter-sticks.

    Try using your thumb as an inch reference.

    YOU’RE STILL NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, WITH THE CUBIT SYSTEM.

    The old cubit system that everyone is deriding, when they say “lol, imagine using a king’s arm as your measurement” was NOT a matter of using anyone’s actual goddamned meat thumb as a measurement.

    Maybe it was, before the king’s body parts got involved. But by standardizing on a what was supposedly the king’s body parts, you got THE BENEFITS OF STANDARD MEASUREMENTS.

    They had a standard cubit rod, in the palace or temple or wherever, and you would use that shit to calibrate everyone’s everyday-use measuring sticks. Remember: people are saying that it was dumb and ego-driven for the measurements to be based on the king’s body. But, to make it abundantly clear, THE STANDARDIZATION WAS THE USEFUL PART OF THE WHOLE THING.

    The idea of a forearm-length and a finger-length became axiomatic and abstract. The important part was that it was a standard unit that everyone could rely on. It was the same from one end of your kingdom to the other, and you didn’t have to worry about one guy’s arm being shorter than another guy’s arm, and so your building comes out crooked.

    I’ll say it again, to be super-duper-incredibly clear: it’s unfair and idiotic to be like “HAHA, IMAGINE BEING SUCH A DUMBHEAD THAT YOU WOULD USE A KING’S ARM TO MEASURE STUFF,” but then turn around and praise the metric system for the wonders of standardization. You can see the ancient world’s standardization either as “tyrants made the people use their system” or “someone invented standard measures, and that’s why the Egyptians could build so much awesome shit.” The latter is correct.

    As I have said a couple times in other comments, the real genius move was deciding to base the new standard units on the king’s body, in the first place. I’m certain it was NOT the actual kings who had the idea, but whoever it was realized they could use the power of the king for everyone’s benefit.

    If someone had come up with the concept of a standard cubit and just shopped the idea around, everyone would have been like “cool, that’s great” and then fucking ignored them.

    But some massive-brained motherfucker went to the king with the idea. This did several things:

    1. It got the royal family to fund the creation of the standard system. Funding is good. You can’t have a new system without funding, and the king was the guy with the funds.

    2. You need a safe, well-maintained, centrally located place to store the precious original calibration cubit rod. The king has one or more of those places. They’re called palaces, government buildings, and/or temples. Those places are made to be secure, yet accessible for people who need to get official shit done. Absolutely perfect places for making new rulers from the calibration rods.

    3. When people get a delivery of new rulers that are based on the king’s forearm, they are VERY unlikely to say “cool, whatever” and refuse to use them. That could be seen as rebellious, rude, or impious. So you get people to ADOPT your new system of standardization.

    This shit is fucking genius. It delivered a huge percentage of what we think of as the benefits of the metric system, thousands of years before the goddamned metric system.

    Yes, there are genuine innovations that came along with the metric system itself, and as the SI system has been refined, over the last couple centuries. But that journey STARTED with someone deciding to use the king’s body parts as a standard.

    Nobody should ever use “haha, it’s so dumb to use measurements based on a long-dead king’s meat parts” as some kind of CONTRASTING example. That makes no sense. That shit WAS the beginning of standardization. It’s not the opposite of the metric system. It’s the progenitor of the metric system.

    • @Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
      1•7 months ago

      I’m not deriding the genius science-coup of appealing to royal ego, or pretending that there’s a desiccated thumb we’re using as a standard.

      They changed in 2019 from physical reference ‘blocks’ for the shared weakness as all the other systems that have a ‘master’ calibration unit - whether that’s the SI kilogram or a cubit, or the goddamn kings arm. If the ‘master’ calibration unit changes, that introduces imperceptible drift.

      This becomes even more important for actual science - say your scale manufacturer calibrates against the standard ‘master’ measure last week, but your prior lab scales are older. Or apply that across different countries even - they all calibrated against the ‘master’ standard, but minute changes between years or decades looses the authentic standard of X. Dust, temperature, damage, etc all can very slightly throw off the consistency

      • Chill Dude 69
        1•7 months ago

        That’s all totally valid.

        My pet peeve is when people talk about the old king’s-body-part systems, as if they are the dumb old opposite of the new, logical metric system. That’s not just false, it’s ludicrous. Ya know, because the one system grew directly out of the other. They were never actually in opposition, as concepts. The SI progenitors just wanted everyone to be on the same standard, worldwide. And for that standard to be more perfect, more consistently defined, and continually improved upon.

        In truth, the real step forward is the stubborn persistence of the international organizations that have worked across language barriers and times of international conflict to keep the system going.

        And, of course, it has to be remembered that all that effort wasn’t worth doing, until very recently. Up until we had really fast mail (and then telegraphy/telephone) systems for communication, extremely interconnected and fast trade routes between essentially all nations, and extremely advanced cooperation among cross-continental scientific organizations, it didn’t really make sense to try and put everyone onto the same unit system.

        In other words, the SI system came along when worldwide conditions were ripe for it to prosper. That’s not taking anything away from the aforementioned grit and determination and labor that the SI founders and current organizers have done. I’m just saying that it’s incorrect to characterize the situation as “gee, people were soooooo simple and dumb and gross, before these amazing French dudes saved us from our primitive inches and feet.”

        And yet that’s how people talk about it. Like I said, it’s a pet peeve.

        EDIT: Also, I think a lot of people fail to recognize that all the powerful nations in the pre-SI world had completely functional systems of standard measurements. It’s just that those systems didn’t function outside of their specific nations/empires. Again, there’s too much of a hyper-grandiose narrative, as if these French giants came along and invented ALMOST THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF MEASURING STUFF, overnight.