In 2015, science avoided a crisis. In our increasingly technological world we need ever increasing precision for measurements – the micro-scopic world (10-6) has become nano-scopic (10-9) and even “Angstrom”-scopic (10-10) to measure wavelengths of light, atomic, and molecular sizes. Scientists desperately needed an upgrade for calibration in the International System of Units (SI).
The Standard Kilogram, the International Kilogram, was a plug of platinum-iridium locked away in a safe under vacuum in Paris, France for over 100 years. It was apparently losing weight, up to as much as 75 billionths of a kilogram. This was a serious issue to scientists because every accurate weight in the world was ultimately calibrated from this weight.
The French called this absolute standard kilo “Le Grand Kilo” or “Le Grand K”. Other calibration kilograms were manufactured to precisely the weight of Le Grand K, using diamond cutting tools and chamois cloth to polish the plugs down to the exact weight. Highly trained physicists at Standards Bureaus all over the world became their country’s mass measurement expert, in charge of keeping their calibration kilograms accurate and ultimately calibrated to Le Grand K. America’s standard kilo was known simply as K-20. The King of Kilograms was also the standard reference for a pound since, in 1959, the United States officially set the weight of one pound at precisely 0.45359237 kilograms. And because the kilogram was originally defined in 1795 as the weight required to lift 1 liter, or 1000 cm3, of water at the temperature of melting ice (0⁰ Celsius), it became the Standard for the meter, the basic SI unit for length, width, and depth, and thus volume, that is “space”!
The care given Le Grand K was impressive. The safe which held this King of Kilos required three keys to open it, including one which belonged to the National Archivist of France. Le Grand K had rarely been disturbed for weighing’s (roughly every 45 years) since it was made in 1878. The Kilo of Kilos was kept pristinely clean because dirt and dust, of course, add weight. Metrologists (scientists who specialize in precision measurements) studied the cleaning techniques for Le Grand K like choreographers study the steps of a master.
If measurement differences are not noted through proper calibration, chaos results in the world of science. Standard methods, procedures, and definitions are the most basic ingredients to good science. Scientists working in industry must be familiar with the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) and/or the International Standards Organization (ISO) because the assurance of quality and interpretation of data requires absolute references. Metrologists worldwide worked for over 20 years to find another more stable basis for the definition of the kilogram. Nowadays, lasers, superconducting magnets, and electric fields are the basis for defining the Kilogram.
Because of unreliability, a standard of measure for mass, a very physical material quantity, has become defined by very immaterial values. The Kilogram is now defined by the speed of light, the radiating frequency of energy transition from the ground state electrons in caesium-133 atoms, and the Planck constant, which relates the energy of a photon to its vibrational frequency. That’s quite a lot to digest. But, once again physical reality is transcended and preceded by light and vibrational energy at the basis of physical reality.
From our perspective at Creation Moments, it is interesting that a material failure (a limitation of materialism, if you will) has led scientists to an immaterial standard for the most basic measure of materials. Does that not point to immaterial truth being a more reliable standard than material truth? To material truth being merely an imperfect reflection of immaterial truth? This is, in fact, what the Bible says.
And just as scientists have had to have a King of Kilos, we have a King of Kings and Lord of Lords - a Creator who defines and personifies truth, and who provides the absolute, unchanging reference for our own individual and corporate calibration.
Image: International prototype of the kilogram, BIPM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, Wikimedia Commons.
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