![]() It follows that any standard unit of length is indeterminate as well. Footnote 1 However, there is a good-although not definitive-reason to think that the meter is indeterminate. Indeed, this seems to be a common view amongst those who even pause to consider the issue. It is tempting to think that the meter is perfectly determinate. Thus, even the rogue nations accept what I will call a standard unit of length (i.e., any unit of length definable in terms of the meter). Of course, one can define derivative units in terms of meters (e.g., nanometer, kilometer, inch, and megaparsec) for example, since 1959, an inch has been defined as exactly 0.0254 m. (For example, the United States of America uses miles.) The fundamental SI unit of length is the meter. Moreover, it is not as if these rogue nations reject the SI system-they just do not take the units of the SI system to be their official units of measurement. As of 2017, it has been adopted by every nation on Earth except Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America as its official system of measurements, and even in these exceptions, it is unofficially adopted by scientists, engineers, and just about anyone else who is interested in precise measurement. The International System of Units (SI) is the global standard for measurement. Finally, it is shown how to redefine ‘meter’ and ‘second’ to completely avoid the indeterminacy. Moreover, the indeterminacy of the meter has ramifications for the metaphysics of measurement (e.g., problems for widespread assumptions about the nature of conventionality, as in Theodore Sider’s Writing the Book of the World) and the semantics of measurement locutions (e.g., undermining the received view that measurement phrases are absolutely precise as in Christopher Kennedy’s and Louise McNally’s semantics for gradable adjectives). ![]() The indeterminacy of the meter is compared and contrasted with emerging literature on indeterminacy in measurement locutions (as in Eran Tal’s recent argument that measurement units are vague in certain ways). ![]() As such, it is highly likely that indeterminacy pervades the SI system. This problem affects most of the familiar derived units in SI. If the meter is indeterminate, then any unit in the SI system that is defined in terms of the meter is indeterminate as well. Thus, it is highly probable that ‘meter’ is indeterminate. Moreover, we have good reason to believe that there is a minimal length. I show that one consequence of these definitions is that: if there is a minimal length (e.g., Planck length), then the chances that ‘meter’ is completely determinate are only 1 in 21,413,747. In the International System of Units (SI), ‘meter’ is defined in terms of seconds and the speed of light, and ‘second’ is defined in terms of properties of cesium 133 atoms. ![]()
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