on 21.12.2000 14.13, James R. Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Right. Again, the question is who, not why. Can it be attributed to any
> one person?
>
> Jim
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> The term "metric" is old (I do not know how old) from Greek. It means
>> measure.
>> France had many systems of measure, that is, metric systems. Each local
>> government had its own metric system. The national government of France made
>> up
>> one system of measures, specified to be decimal. So we have in French
>> history the
>> creation of not just a metric system but a decimal metric system. We, being
>> sloppy, have dropped the "decimal". We need to say "decimal" more often.
>> In SI 10 page 60, about the history of SI the second word is "decimal".
>> Robert H Bushnell 00-12-20
Dear Jim and All,
I'm not quite sure whether you are asking for the originator of decimal
measures or of metric measures.
If you are referring to decimal measures, then there is no doubt that the
originator was Simon Stevin (1548-1620) in a book called De Thiende, which
he published in 1585 - the same year that Stevin developed the idea of the
triangle of forces. De Thiende literally means 'Of Tithes' or 'Of Tenths'.
As I understand it the idea was then passed to the Academicians in Paris in
the late 1780s and the early 1790s via G Mouton, who proposed (in 1670) that
one sixtieth part of a degree of the meridian of Earth as a unit for a
decimal system of measure.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin CAMS
Geelong, Australia
