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Information about travelling to Paris, France.
May 8, 1790: Liberté! Egalité! Métriqué!
Author: Randy Alfred
1790: The French National Assembly decides to create a decimal system of measurement. The metric system is born.
This came after the storming of the Bastille but still before the declaration of a republic and the execution of King Louis XVI. But revolution was in the air: "National Assembly" was simply the new name the upstart Third Estate had given itself.
The assembly was acting on a motion by Bishop Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. Under the ancien régime, France measured with an inch, foot and fathom (pouce, pied and toise) about 6.6 percent larger than their English counterparts.
The first meter was based on clockmaking: the length of a pendulum with a half-period (a one-way swing) of one second. Responding to a proposal by the French Academy of Sciences, the assembly redefined the meter in 1793 as 1/10,000,0001 of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole.
The system was elegant. All conversions were based on 10, with Greek prefixes (deka-, hecto-, kilo-) for multiples and Latin (deci-, centi-, milli-) for fractions. The gram unit of weight was defined by the weight of one cubic centimeter (aka milliliter) of water.
The new "Republican Measures" became legal throughout France in 1795 and were made compulsory in 1799 when definitive platinum meter bars and kilogram weights were constructed. But resistance to the new measures lasted for decades.
France also used a quasi-metric Revolutionary Calendar with each month consisting of three décades of 10 days each. (Revolutionaries even attempted a metric day of 10 hours of 100 minutes each of 100 seconds each.) But Napoleon returned France to the Gregorian calendar in 1806.
The current International System of Units -- or SI, for Système International -- is based on the Treaty of the Meter signed in Paris on May 20, 1875. The United States was a signatory, and the metric system is the legal system in this country, although the legal alternate English system remains more widely used. (An online conversion engine can make translation easy.)
The meter was formally redefined in 1960 as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the orange-red light radiation of the krypton 86 atom (transition between levels 2p10 and 5d5). The new standard was 100 times more precise than the old. The current definition, adopted in 1983, makes the meter the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during 1/299,792,458 of a second.
That's 39.37 inches to counter-revolutionaries.
Source: Various
Published: 2008-05-07 20:00:00
Top 10 Wired.com Reader Transportation Photos, Decided by You
Author: Wired.com Photo Department
 : At first we were concerned what kind of images we would get for our transportation photo contest, but we needn't have worried. Over the past two weeks of voting we've received many truly excellent submissions, with these 10 superb photos gaining top ranking among voters. Pete Bowers won the contest with his photo "The Land of Ghosts," at left. Bowers will receive a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk.
We had many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, so we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Transportation Photo Gallery.
Our next two-week photo contest is black-and-white. We want you to discard your color palette and think only in shadows. Check the contest page for more information.
Left:
The Land of Ghosts
Submitted by Peter Bowers
Photographer's comment:
"Paddling in the Leslie Frost wilderness area, Ontario, Canada.”
 : I've Only Got Eyes for You
Submitted by Daniel Austin
Photographer's comment:
"Floor of the L-Taraval on the way home from a rock show in the Mission [District of San Francisco]"
 : Flight Over South Korea
Submitted by Adrian Sotomayor
Photographer's comment:
"Took this before landing in Seoul, Korea."
 : Twisted Garage
Submitted by Petter Duvander
Photographer's comment:
"The parking garage for the world-famous Turning Torso [skyscraper] in Malmö, Sweden. Shot with Nikon D80 and a Sigma 10-20mm lens. Three exposures, compiled and tone-mapped."
 : Weekend Travel
Submitted by Kal
Photographer's comment:
"No people, no trains. This is London travel at the weekend!"
 : Warp Speed (in Lancaster County)
Submitted by Anonymous
Photographer's comment:
"As we were driving though Lancaster County, I put my Sigma 8mm fisheye on the dashboard, told everyone, 'Don't move,' and set the timer for a cool light-trail effect: f/5.6, 1.3-second exposure at ISO 1600."
 : Untitled
Submitted by David B
Photographer's comment:
"Night-storm-lightning photo taken beside northbound traffic on Interstate 65."
 : Shipwrecked
Submitted by Nathan Nowack Photography
Photographer's comment:
"Transportation no more."
 : Through the Fog
Submitted by Will
Photographer's comment:
"Taken with a cheap Canon point-and-shoot while ascending through the fog on a ski lift at Sun Valley, Idaho."
 : Next Stop
Submitted by J.M. Kezman
Photographer's comment:
"An evening train arrives on the RER A [Regional Express Network, Line A], Paris, France."
   
Published: 2008-05-04 20:00:00
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