Fun measurement (10) – French unified weights and measures

　Since Qin Shi Huang's unified weights and measures, China has unlocked the scientific and technological project of "unified weights and measures" prematurely, so that China has lived a unified life of 2,000 years, and it is hard to believe that this happened in the feudal period.

Since Qin Shi Huang unified weights and measures, China's complete system of weights and measures has deeply affected all aspects of Chinese.

The unification of weights and measures not only had a positive effect on the tax system and the mercy system; Moreover, the influence of separatist forces was eliminated and China's unity was safeguarded.

Weights and measures everywhere reflect the ancient Chinese understanding of music, astronomy, smelting, mathematics, physics, and from which laws, contracts and so on are derived.

Globally, there has never been a uniform measure of measurement not only between countries, but also within some countries.

Until the end of the 18th century, when European innovation began with the observation and induction of the sun, moon and stars, technology was rooted in the advancement of glass technology that led to mirrors and microscopes. When Captain Cook searches for gold, he discovers Australia and rubs shoulders with Antarctica, so that the Pacific islands are no longer isolated from the world.

At that time, the weights and measures of Europe were as complex as those of the Warring States period. In the 17th and 18th centuries, France and Europe used a variety of different units of measurement, and not only in everyday economic life but also in scientific experiments, they were increasingly disrupted by different units of measurement.

In 1742, a team of scientists carefully compared the "Paris Units of Measurement" with the British units of measurement at the time, and found that the French "Pied" and "livre" were 6% and 8% larger than "Feet" and "Pounds", respectively.

Scientists began to search for a unit of measurement suitable for all countries, and Enlightenment scientists and reformist officials tried to find a rational standard from nature that applied to everyone.

Louis X, then of France, ordered the harmonization of weights and measures, and he asked scientists to find a "perceptible" way to measure mass, so that everyone could measure a kilogram at any time.

Unfortunately, his order had not yet been implemented, and in the spring of 1789, the revolutionary storm came. Louis XVI did not yet have a uniform measurement system. His own head fell on the guillotine of his own design. What's going on here?

It turned out that this Louis Auguste, the fifth king of the French Bourbon dynasty, was as unreliable as the Song Huizong of the Song Dynasty in Chinese history.

Speaking of the Song Huizong of the Song Dynasty. Everyone knows that Zhao He who was successively named King of Suining and King Duan. According to the normal development of things, he should have practiced words, drawn, played football every day, and lived the life of Xiaoyao Wangye, but God made jokes on him. Inexplicably, he became the emperor, and then promoted Gao Lian and listened to Gao Liang's words. Make a mess of the country, and then become a prisoner of the golden country yourself.

This Louis XVI Emperor, like Song Huizong, was a scientist delayed by the emperor's profession. Emperor Louis XVI was versatile, he was good at Latin and English, interested in historical geography, and talented? With a scientific spirit that surpasses kings,

When Louis XVI was still crown prince, he already showed a talent for lock research. He had built one of the finest hardware workshops in France in the Palace of Versailles, and hung rooms full of the most intricate and exquisite locks he made.

After becoming king, he had no intention of ruling and often associated with various chains. His locks are extremely creative and come in a variety of shapes, and almost every one is a work of art. He once made the lock into the shape of a lively and cute carp, squirrel or duck, twisted the key of the "squirrel", and the "squirrel" would frequently nod and wag his tail to beg for mercy. There is a "salamander" lock, insert the key and turn it three times, and water will spray out of the "salamander's mouth".

In order to cater to the king's hobby of "locks", people have used various locks to coerce the king. During a parade to celebrate the birth of the prince, someone even lifted out a special "big lock", and when people opened the door of the "big lock", a lovely "little prince" came out of it, which made Louis XVI happy, and he specially ordered his men to reward the marchers with the locks he made.

What's worse is that his queen Marie Antois did not understand politics, but liked to interfere in imperial politics, and Louis XVI treated her like Emperor Huizong of Song did to Gao Liang. Queen Mary likes luxury and gorgeous enjoyment, such as makeup, buying clothes, buying jewelry, holding balls, decorating villas, and decorating gardens. The French autocracy fell into a serious crisis, with court ministers vying for power, sharp social contradictions, empty treasuries, and high debts. Compared to the political and economic state of France, it cannot withstand such luxury.

It is said that when the minister told Mary that the French people did not even have bread, Mary smiled innocently and sweetly: "Then why don't they eat cake."

Emperor Louis XVI convened a "Council of the Dignitaries" in an attempt to tax the privileged classes, which was resisted by the nobility and failed. Louis XVI was furious.

So Emperor Louis XVI secretly mobilized his army in an attempt to disperse the Constituent Assembly, which finally inspired the popular uprising in Paris on July 14. Executed on 21 January 1793 by a guillotine of his own design at the Place de la Revolence (now Place de la Concorde) in Paris, he became the only king in French history to be executed, and the second king in European history.

After the French Revolution, the Revolutionary Party established policy decrees for the capitalist economic order. In early August 1789, the adoption of the August Decree coincided with the promulgation of other decrees, such as the abolition of the guild system, the free trade in grain, the abolition of inland tax cards, and the unification of weights and measures and the currency system.

The revolutionaries of the French Revolution aspired to create a unified unit of weights and measures on an eternal and constant scale earth.

Revolutionaries are confident and seek to change every aspect of human life. Perhaps their most lasting intervention – arguably their mildest – is to stipulate that henceforth the basic unit of measure will be the 'meter'.

The diplomat Taylor Rantë formally proposed to the National Assembly in 1790 to establish a unit of length in the length of a pendulum of seconds.

Since the length of the pendulum depends on the acceleration of gravity, which in turn varies with the latitude and altitude of the earth. As a result, this suggestion was not adopted.

At that time, people believed that the length of the earth's meridian was fixed, so it was decided to choose the earth's meridian as the definition of meters. The name of the meter was taken from the ancient Greek word metron, which later evolved into meter.

France began to measure the length of the Earth's arc in the late 17th century, and from 1683 to 1718, astronomers G.D. Cassini & J. Cassini measured the length of the arc with an arc amplitude of 8°20′ by triangulation on the Meridian Circle of Paris, and estimated the flatness of the major axis of the Earth's ellipsoid.

The French scientific community, when accepting Newtonian mechanics, disputed the shape of the Earth. From 1735 to 1741, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent two surveying teams to determine the length of the one-degree arc of the local meridian using traditional geodesic techniques. The South American Peruvian expedition led by Clairo and the Polar Lapland expedition led by Moppedu the following year, which ended in 1744, confirmed that the shape of the Earth was a slightly flattened ellipsoid at the poles.

In 1754, astronomer La Kayi first measured the length of the Earth's meridian arc in southern Africa. Astronomers demand the selection of appropriate units of scale and the establishment of standards in measurement practice.

In 1791, French scientists set the length of the earth's meridian at one meter in 40 millionths. In other words, one meter is equal to one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's pole to the equator (what is known today as 1 meter).

　In 1799, after Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, he began domestic reforms and implemented a series of economic measures to strengthen his rule. The use of decimal units of measurement was also on the agenda. French scientists use decimal based on the standard length of 1 meter to obtain a standard capacity of 1 liter and a standard weight of 1 kilogram.

　　In this way, the establishment of the metric unit became the first scientific achievement of the French Revolution.