Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 05:24:41 -0700
From: "Alan S." <as173 AT cornell DOT edu>
Subject: Re: [off-topic] shutting down
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Message-id: <3AD05889.EE975A73@cornell.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win95; U)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
X-Accept-Language: en
References: <200104072210 DOT SAA14388 AT delorie DOT com> <3ACFF9D0 DOT 681E32CF AT cornell DOT edu>
 <2 DOT 07b7 DOT W72P DOT GBGSPU AT belous DOT munic DOT msk DOT su>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from QUOTED-PRINTABLE to 8bit by delorie.com id IAA10437
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

"The unit of volume, the liter, was originally defined as 1 cubic
decimeter (cdm3), but in 1901 it was redefined as the volume occupied by
a kilogram of water at 4° C at 760 mm of mercury; in 1964 the original
definition (cdm3) was restored."

    Extract from article titled "The Metric System." 
    [Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2001. 
     © 1993-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]


My [UK publication] SI Standards reference volume [published before MS
was founded!] details the 1964 change of basis in almost the same words,
but I had not seen the specifics of the 1899/1901 definitional change
until I looked in Encarta.  [And I bet that if we checked, we'd find
that the 1899 GCWM findings were published in 1901...?]

Alan S.
4-8-2001


  

"Arkady V.Belousov" wrote:
> Not very so. In 1889 on the I General conference was affirmed the 1
> kilogramm as weight of 1 litre (1 dm^3) clear water at temperature of 
> its most density. First weight etalon was implemented as platinum 
> cylinder block at height and diameter of 39 cm. But later was find 
> out that prototype was implemented not too precise and litre become 
> not equal to 1 dm^3 (but with 0,0028% error). This was corrected on 
> the XII General conference in 1964.

as173 AT cornell DOT edu (Alan S.) wrote: 
> However, IIRC, there are two very slightly different 'inches', viz:
> The 'Historical' Imperial Inch equal to 2.539998... cm
> and the SI Inch which is an (SI) Special Name for [exactly] 2.54 cm
> [ For that matter, the litre was resized from 1,000.028 cubic cm to 
> be a Special Name for (exactly) 1,000 cubic cm in 1964. ]