2004/12/14 by P. Agnoli, Paolo Agnoli, Gilles d'Agostini +3 · 3 voices · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Physics Education (physics.ed-ph) #Seismic Imaging and Inversion Techniques #Seismic Waves and Analysis #physics.ed-ph #physics.hist-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0412078
29 pages, 1 figure. Browsable version, Italian summary and useful links are available at http://www.roma1.infn.it/~dagos/history/sm/
openalex publication_date 2004/12/14 · arxiv published 2004/12/14 · arxiv created 2005/01/25 · arxiv updated 2005/01/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The French Academy units of time and length - the second and the meter - are traditionally considered independent from each other. However, it is a matter of fact that a meter simple pendulum beats virtually the second in each oscillation, a `surprising' coincidence that has no physical reason. We shortly review the steps that led to the choice of the meter as the ten millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian, and rise the suspicion that, indeed, the length of the seconds pendulum was in fact the starting point in establishing the actual length of the meter.