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Does anyone have a source on this being a Pittacus quotation? Apart from being -wouldn't you say- necessary, a source might also help with making sense of the Greek (if for example this is dative + imperative, where is the iota of the former? unless this is some weird aeolic form or simply an anachronistic omission).
Thanatos|talk|contributions 17:20, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this helps. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ecumenical+Theology+of+Hope+for+the+Common+Oikos+and+the+Greed+Line+as...-a0577908341

I think the Free Library is not a valid source for us but perhaps it can be used as a springboard to find something better.  Stepho  talk  05:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm beginning to think that this is made up, that someone, looking for gravitas, having consulted some friendly hellenist coined μέτρῳ χρῶ to put on the seal cutting out the iota subscript for simplicity and then (someone else subsequently?!?!) attributed it to Pittakos.
PS Pittakos' τοῖς ἐπιτηδείοις χρῶ (see e.g. Diels H., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1960, p60) might have served either as an inspiration for the former or as close enough quotation for the latter.
Thanatos|talk|contributions 23:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, maybe you could find informations following this link: https://thebipm150.org/history/ Charles Inigo (talk) 17:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did try, once, and did find scholarly collections of his surviving fragments but it wasn't among them. NebY (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Moved to Talk:History_of_the_metre#Article_History_of_the_metre_should_not_only_be_a_history_of_definitions_of_the_metre. fgnievinski (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Is the adoption of the metre by country notable for "Metre"? Seems like this belongs on Metrication. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:15, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Same for the paragraph about Guillaume. For the 'Early adoptions of the metre internationally' section, I would leave only the top paragraph and it's link to Metrication.  Stepho  talk  01:45, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and the first paragraph may then be trimmed as excessively detailed; what's the significance for this article of the "first official Swiss map"? As for the rest, these are largely adoptions of the metric system rather than of the metre specifically or alone (every article on any unit in the metric system could be padded similarly), and at least one instance is incorrect or at best misleading (the US made the metric system lawful but has famously not metricated). NebY (talk) 18:31, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As these are all adoptions of the metric system, rather than the metre, I've removed the section. Ideally, the removal will also forestall further work on irrelevancies such as the award of an honorary doctorate. NebY (talk) 02:06, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article title is misspelled. Under Spelling, the justification for this mistake is that countries other than the US spell it differently.

But Wikipedia in general uses US spellings. Wiki does not spell it "colour" it is "color".

So this is a complete error. The scientific community disagrees with this decision. It is spelled meter is US publications and otherwise in other publications.

But you cannot do "color" and "metre". That is wrong and completely non-standard. Montgomery Link (talk) 19:28, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:TITLEVAR, part of our policy on titles documented at Wikipedia:Article titles. For the proposition that "Wikipedia in general uses US spellings", see MOS:ENGVAR, and unless you're editing using the mobile app, you should be able to see the banner high up on this talk page stating that this article is written in British English. This search indicates that 99,726 articles do use "colour" (the color:colour ratio seems to be about 2:1). The spelling "metre" is common in scientific and other publications, the scientific and other communities not being restricted to the US. This article doesn't use "color". NebY (talk) 20:17, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this article is about the SI standard unit, which is spelt "metre" in the standards publication. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:23, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ML: Your claim "Wikipedia in general uses US spellings" is very, very wrong - see WP:ENGVAR. Both British and American English are equally valid but we generally keep to whichever dialect that was chosen when the article was created and do not flip-flop between them.

The majority of English speaking countries (and their scientists) spell it as "metre". You are possibly thinking of American scientists - who quite naturally use the American spelling.  Stepho  talk  22:56, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to rename the section History and to use an excerpt of Arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain instead of an excerpt of History of the metre as this article as been proposed for deletion. Charles Inigo (talk) 10:42, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If History of the metre is deleted, we can merge the currently excerpted text here. It is more succinct and relevant than any passage from Arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain. "History of definition" is an appropriately focused title for the section. NebY (talk) 17:42, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your answer. That makes sense. Charles Inigo (talk) 18:55, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted edits by @Blainster:; here's why.

The statement "The current definition was adopted in 1983..." means that the definition of the metre in terms of seconds (directly or indirectly defined in terms of something to do with caesium atoms), which is the current definition, as described in the article, was adopted in 1983. Before 1983 the metre was defined completely differently. The current (in its normal meaning) definition will remain until the metre is completely redefined, which is not likely to happen within a century, if ever, and at which time this article will be rewritten. So there is no ambiguity whatsoever, and any proposed rewrite is less readable. In particular the definition was actually not "improved" in 1983, it was changed completely.

The statement "...today Earth's polar circumference measures 40007.863 km, a change of about 200 parts per million from the original value of exactly 40000 km, which also includes improvements in the accuracy of measuring the circumference." is more problematic, but not because of "today". The "today" could perhaps be written better as "currently", but here "today" is utterly unambiguous: it is not the meaning of "5th of December", it is (clearly) the generic "present time" meaning. The problem in the sentence is that it suggests that the earth's circumference has grown by 200 ppm since 17-something, which I believe is not true.

Imaginatorium (talk) 09:34, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the definition of the metre isn't one of the Statements likely to become outdated in the foreseeable future, and if it ever is then it will receive considerable attention. We don't need to phrase this article to avoid the risk of obsolescence.

The polar circumference statements are indeed problematic, including the description of the initial definition. That was tied to one particular part of one particular great circle; they understood that the earth wasn't a perfect sphere. It didn't state that the circumference was 40,000 km. Describing the circumference as changing by 200 ppm is misleading in so many ways. e.g. not a comparison with the specified distance from equator to pole via Paris, and no indication of how much is down to modern measurement and how much represents a change in the metre. I suspect the change from the 1799 Mètre des Archives is far less, but haven't found any modern comparison with that.

It's also not a summary of the body of the article per MOS:LEAD, and not sourced.

I've tried to improve it but it needs more work. NebY (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]