"Harry Wyeth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The "beauty" I spoke of is not only that a liter of water weighs one kg, but > that (duh) a milliliter of water weighs one gram. It is a way of getting a > feel of how small a ml is and how little it weighs. [snip] > But I find it a pretty nifty thing that SI has capacity and weight units that > interlock the way the L and kg do (also think of one cubic meter weighing one > tonne). The old system doesn't do this, as we all know.
When I first learned the metric system I thought this match-up was a great thing, too. Then I learned it wasn't really true. Pre-1963, the liter was defined as one kg of water (at max density or 4 degrees C), but that was actually 1000.028 cc. In 1963 the French committee in charge of the metric system voted, not to fix this discrepancy by adjusting either the meter or the kilogram, but to sweep it under the rug by redefining the liter as 1000 cc (and no longer related to 1 kg of water). In my opinion, this continuing discrepancy means that the metric system is no more "elegant" or "integrated" than the imperial system. Indeed less so, if an imperial gallon weighs 10 pounds. Now that they are thinking of getting rid of the standard kilogram block of platinum/iridium, I urge the authorities to correct their original mistake by reducing the size of the kilogram so that 1000 cc = 1 kg of water, thus defining the kilogram in terms of the meter and integrating the whole system of measurements better. John David Galt
