Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Quinn, Terry
• Schlaudt, Oliver
• Darrigol, Olivier
• de Courtenay, Nadine

Titel

The origins of the Metre Convention, the SI and the development of modern metrology 1

Ist Teil von

• The Reform of the International System of Units (SI), 2019, p.7-29

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Metre Convention of 1875 created the first international scientific institute, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which signaled the beginning of modern metrology. This chapter outlines the origins of the Convention and traces its development to the present day, including the development of the International System of Units (SI), its revision in 2018, the National Metrology Institutes and the mutual recognition arrangement put in place in 1999 to assure a documented worldwide uniformity in measurement under the Metre Convention. An International Metre Commission was created in 1870 by the French Government. After meetings in 1870–a bad time to have an international meeting in Paris–and later in 1872, a diplomatic Conference took place in Paris in 1875 at which the Metre Convention was drawn up and signed by 17 Member States. In 1887, soon after the signing of the Convention, the German Government established the Physicalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin as the first national standards laboratory. The International System of Units (SI) is based on best theoretical description of nature so that SI units are stable in the long term, internally self-consistent and practically realizable. To meet the multitude requirements for measurement there exists an SI that is uniform and accessible worldwide through the work of national metrology institutes. Neither modern metrology nor needs for accurate and reliable metrology appeared suddenly; both are the result of more than 200 years of development.