Dr. Brian Keating

Yeah, well, it was just for length or like a foot. We talk about a foot. It was a pharaoh's foot. Yeah, that's where we get those from, right? So there was only kind of one rough standard for calibration, which is incredibly important for removing systematic effects in science in general. So you had a calibration standard. Now we have like a bar of platinum.

We've defined the second in terms of oscillations of a certain atom. called cesium and how many times it oscillates per second.

We've defined the second in terms of oscillations of a certain atom. called cesium and how many times it oscillates per second.

We've defined the second in terms of oscillations of a certain atom. called cesium and how many times it oscillates per second.

So now we want to define those in terms of physical quantities, not in terms of people. And so doing that has been a great advance forward in science. And we've only recently gotten rid of what are called artifacts. So it used to be there was a rod that was one meter long. And the meter was originally defined as 69,000. I forget, of the distance from the North Pole to Paris.

So now we want to define those in terms of physical quantities, not in terms of people. And so doing that has been a great advance forward in science. And we've only recently gotten rid of what are called artifacts. So it used to be there was a rod that was one meter long. And the meter was originally defined as 69,000. I forget, of the distance from the North Pole to Paris.

So now we want to define those in terms of physical quantities, not in terms of people. And so doing that has been a great advance forward in science. And we've only recently gotten rid of what are called artifacts. So it used to be there was a rod that was one meter long. And the meter was originally defined as 69,000. I forget, of the distance from the North Pole to Paris.

But that obviously depends on assuming the Earth is a perfect sphere, which it's not, right?

But that obviously depends on assuming the Earth is a perfect sphere, which it's not, right?

But that obviously depends on assuming the Earth is a perfect sphere, which it's not, right?

Yeah, that's right. It bulges because it's an oblate sphere, right? Exactly. And so all these things that were relics, we want to get rid of them and tie them to fundamental properties of, say, a quantum system that's very pure and we can isolate it. We don't want to use a pharaoh's foot either, so we have to come with a link standard and

Yeah, that's right. It bulges because it's an oblate sphere, right? Exactly. And so all these things that were relics, we want to get rid of them and tie them to fundamental properties of, say, a quantum system that's very pure and we can isolate it. We don't want to use a pharaoh's foot either, so we have to come with a link standard and

Yeah, that's right. It bulges because it's an oblate sphere, right? Exactly. And so all these things that were relics, we want to get rid of them and tie them to fundamental properties of, say, a quantum system that's very pure and we can isolate it. We don't want to use a pharaoh's foot either, so we have to come with a link standard and

So now we use the speed of light times the second and we can define things in those terms. But back then, yeah, so they didn't know that. But I told Joe, as I said, if you measure the base of all the great pyramids at Giza, they're all multiples of a cubit times so many numbers of the number pi. So like – but pi wasn't known to them.

So now we use the speed of light times the second and we can define things in those terms. But back then, yeah, so they didn't know that. But I told Joe, as I said, if you measure the base of all the great pyramids at Giza, they're all multiples of a cubit times so many numbers of the number pi. So like – but pi wasn't known to them.

So now we use the speed of light times the second and we can define things in those terms. But back then, yeah, so they didn't know that. But I told Joe, as I said, if you measure the base of all the great pyramids at Giza, they're all multiples of a cubit times so many numbers of the number pi. So like – but pi wasn't known to them.

Pi wasn't known to be irrational until the Greeks and Euclid proved that it was irrational and that it didn't come from a computational – it couldn't easily be obtained from – it had infinite number of digits, right? So how did these Egyptians know that? An alien told them, no. The way they did it is they laid it out. They used a surveyor's tool.

Pi wasn't known to be irrational until the Greeks and Euclid proved that it was irrational and that it didn't come from a computational – it couldn't easily be obtained from – it had infinite number of digits, right? So how did these Egyptians know that? An alien told them, no. The way they did it is they laid it out. They used a surveyor's tool.

Pi wasn't known to be irrational until the Greeks and Euclid proved that it was irrational and that it didn't come from a computational – it couldn't easily be obtained from – it had infinite number of digits, right? So how did these Egyptians know that? An alien told them, no. The way they did it is they laid it out. They used a surveyor's tool.

One of the surveyor's tool is a stick with a wheel on it. So the wheel's a circle. So you got so many multiples, they just counted. And that's how, so we confuse a lot of things.