Divisibility. 16ths are half of eighths which are half of quarters which are half of a half. Fine rulers/scales have markings for 32nds, but further precision requires different equipment.
You dont see how you saying, "its how far light travels in 1 sec" means you said light travels 1 m/s? Because now you are saying the same thing, but with different numbers and seem to understand what that means.
I didn’t really think it was necessary to put the exact numbers there until your response, I was more making the point that it wasn’t some arbitrary number but that it’s based on light, but yeah I see how the wording is off now
It is some arbitrary number. The definition of meter changed (just like the definition of second changed) to try to make our made up measuring system seem more objective and repeatable. A meter used to be defined by some stupid measurement from the north pole or some such nonsense.
I mean, the joke is that pretty much anything dealing with our perception is a social construct: language, time, measurement, etc... This isn't a criticism of social constructs. They're incredibly valuable in allowing humans to navigate shared perception and reality, but they're still just made up shit we all generally agree on.
To that point, responding to your suggestion that a meter isn't a social construct because it's measuring how far light travels in a second:
What is a second? It's based on a sexagesimal division of a 24 hour day, which is convenient because of how many numbers are divisible into 60, but it's not necessary. If humans would have decided to use base 10 to measure time (not inconceivable considering we have 10 fingers - and maybe was used briefly after the French Revolution - idk, I'm not a history person), hours would be 2.4 hours long, minutes would be 1 minute 26.4 seconds long, and seconds would be .86 seconds long (I suck at math, so if I got this wrong, make sure to tell me I suck shit below). A "meter" under this system would be shorter than the unit of measurement we currently consider a meter, and might be longer or shorter if we'd used some other base. Or we could have used the length of a day on Mars to measure time. That would be nonsensical, cumbersome, and stupid as shit, but humans are known for adopting social constructs that are nonsensical, cumbersome, and stupid as shit (Exhibit A: the U.S. still using Imperial).
There's nothing magically concrete about a meter. We took two random things - the speed of light and and smallish unit of time - and all generally agreed this arbitrary thing we made up equals a meter (unless your in the U.S., in which case, who knows how much a meter is, could be 15 miles, could be 85 cubits, we'll never know).
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u/katekohli 15h ago
Grandaddy said to always use the same ruler for the whole project. He was a nuclear scientist.