My west coast brother is traveling this week so it was up to me to find out if today, May 20th, has any special significance. Here's what I found. Today is, among other things, "World Bee Day" to raise awarwness of the importance of bees and other polinators, "World Metrology Day" (yes that is the correct spelling) commemorating the science of measurement, and "National Rescue Dog Day" to encourage animal adoption.
All of these are important days to be sure but I am most intrigued by Metrology, mainly because I don't remember every hearing that word before. This surprises me because I took a lot of math classes in high school and college and I would have bet that dear Mrs. Davis, my teacher for four years of high school math, would have taught us every math term worth knowing. Perhaps I was daydreaming the day it was mentioned.
Anyway, according to Wikipedia, "World Metrology Day" recognizes the signing of the Metre Convention. Just in case that leaves you wanting to know a little more, the Metre Convention was signed on May 20, 1875 by 17 nations (you can Google the whole list) in Paris. It is an international treaty establishing a unified global system of measurements (the metric system). It also created the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM).
As it happens, the United States of America was one of the signers of this treaty. I find this interesting because the metric system (while in use here in the USA to a certain extent) has certainly not replaced gallons, quarts, pints, cups, yards, feet, miles, etc. in our everyday lives. Maybe it will catch on in another 151 years or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment