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Path: utzoo!dciem!ntt
From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (ntt)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: c = 299792458 m/s ... by definition
Message-ID: <284@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Aug-83 10:35:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.284
Posted: Tue Aug 16 10:35:10 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Aug-83 11:24:30 EDT
Organization: D.C.I.E.M, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 11


According to next month's issue of Science 83, the participants in the
international Geneva Conference on Weights and Measures in October will
adopt a new definition of the meter*; it will be the distance travelled
by light in 1/299792458 of a second (in a vacuum, I presume).

This will allow 10 times more accurate measurement than the present
standard of 1650763.73 wavelengths of certain light from krypton-86,
with the new measurements being done by a cesium-133 "atomic clock".

*or metre, or metr, or whatever you prefer...