The Refusal of Time

<p>On Saturday, September 28, 1889, representatives of eighteen countries gathered in Sèvres, outside Paris.They were there to bring the world under the measure of a single meter known as <strong>M</strong> and a single kilogram, <strong>K</strong> — to bless a particular ruler and a particular weight.The conference arbitrarily chose one meter stick and one sample weight from thirty nearly identical copies, declaring: “This prototype of the meter will from now forward represent, at the temperature of melting ice, the metric unit of length. . . .This prototype [of the kilogram] will be considered from now on the unit of mass.” Each delegate strode solemnly to receive his country’s copy of the iridium-platinum X-shaped bar, his nation’s exemplary weight.</p> <p>Until the sanctioning ceremony, <strong>M</strong> and <strong>K</strong> had been but two of many carefully—measured standards. No one among them was yet crowned as the one perfect length or weight. All were certified to be within two ten-thousandths of a meter of all their siblings; this bar might be 1.0001 meters long compared with another, that one 0.9998 meters. But at 1:30 pm that afternoon, the officials loaded the chosen ones—<strong>M</strong> and <strong>K</strong>—into a triple-locked vault, <strong>M</strong> in a sealed, felt-lined brass cylinder and <strong>K</strong> in a triple bell jar. Standard-bearers then took K for burial, with K always surrounded by its six <em>témoins</em>. These copies of the kilogram were witnesses in the truest sense, chosen to bear witness with their very bodies should anything untoward befall the standard…</p>