Peirce linked the metre to the wavelength of a spectral line

CultureLab: Inches to metres: how the metric system was born: "But one thing still missing was a "natural standard" that associated a length measurement with a property of nature. In the 1870s, US logician Charles Sanders Peirce made the key suggestion: link the metre to the wavelength of a spectral line. This way, the standard metre could be reproduced anywhere."

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