Meter
Meter (or metre in British English) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units. It is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
History[edit | edit source]
The meter was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. In 1889, it was redefined in terms of a prototype meter bar (the actual bar used is kept in Paris). In 1960, the meter was redefined in terms of a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. In 1983, the current definition was adopted.
Definition[edit | edit source]
The meter is currently defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. This definition was adopted by the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 1983.
SI prefixes[edit | edit source]
The meter, like all SI units, can be prefixed with the standard SI prefixes to denote decimal multiples and submultiples. For example, a kilometer (km) is 1,000 meters, a centimeter (cm) is one hundredth of a meter, and a millimeter (mm) is one thousandth of a meter.
See also[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
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Contributors: Prab R. Tumpati, MD
