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this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Yes it is a complete friggin coincidence! The meter is 1/10millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator (but just so slightly shorter than that due to measurement errors in 18th century France relating to difficulty in measuring how the earth is not-quite-a-sphere), but I’m still not sure why they landed on that ratio or that particular distance. I assume they were looking for a base unit of a size that would be really easy for everyone to estimate: if I asked you to demonstrate a meter, you could approximate it probably within 15% with your hands.