Chapter 716 Unification of Weights and Measures
The reforms implemented by Purficott have brought about good results, which naturally further improved the empire's evaluation of her.
However, this kind of promotion does not necessarily praise Purficott infinitely. Even though she is now the regent of the empire, she is closer to a dictator in a sense, and she is almost unanimous in the entire empire.
That’s not to say that others didn’t want to flatter Purfict and flatter her.
Although Purficott is not the benevolent monarch of Tongliao who claims to be the 'benefactor of the motherland', she still likes to listen to good words if someone praises her.
The main reason why those who praise her do not praise Perfectcott infinitely is that she was already highly praised in the past. With the current level of literature and art in the Victoria Empire, it is impossible to think of a higher level of praise. .
Such high-level flattery as "If a regent is not born from heaven, the empire will last forever like the night" is still too advanced for the media of the Victoria Empire.
After all, Purficott was previously a talented girl known as the Pearl of Langdon. She was the world's top alchemy master, the only holder of the Philosopher's Stone in the world, and the inventor of fantasy alchemy. In three years, she never achieved anything. There are brave men who have opened up and built the northern border, saved the empire in the final cold winter, and killed gods and dragons...
In a sense, Purficott is already the top legend in the world. Even a small fragment of her life experience and achievements are already out of reach for ordinary people in a lifetime. .
But Purficott has done so many things in just three years that ordinary people may not be able to do in their lifetime. This is really incredible.
Even Purficott herself was surprised by what she had accomplished in just three years.
If it wasn't all her own achievements, she would even suspect that she was reading a cool novel, although there might not be many cool elements in it.
Sometimes Purficott wonders how she does all this. After all, although she is a perfect life form, this "perfect" does not mean that she has one more head than others.
Perfection in alchemy refers to reaching the most stable and harmonious state, rather than giving yourself nine times the intelligence or ten times the strength.
Purficott is indeed smarter than others, but this level of smartness does not make her inhuman.
The same goes for her physical fitness. Although she can easily break through the limits of the human body and become a supernatural knight if she wants to, Purficott's basic physical fitness is actually not that exaggerated.
To be more precise, as a 'perfect living being', Purficott's essence should be to be able to do everything within the category of 'human'.
What she didn't do was not that she couldn't do it, but that she didn't do it.
Similarly, when Purficott is ready to do something, her talent is enough to ensure that she can do her best.
In particular, her soul is still a time traveler, possessing insights that are two hundred years ahead of the times.
From this point of view, Perfect Court is a real dimensionality-reducing blow to people of this era.
It also made the geniuses of this era lament how lucky they were to be born in the same era as her, but they also felt unfortunate because they were born in the same era as her.
However, with the unfolding of the flying battleship plan and the implementation of the empire's five-year economic development plan, people suddenly discovered that Perficott seemed more powerful and terrifying than they imagined.
The entire empire is already fully aware of Purficott's genius.
But when Purficott threw out a request for the establishment of a national unified unit of measurement at a regular cabinet meeting, people still felt that it was difficult to follow the genius's thinking.
"Lord Regent, is this proposal really necessary?" A cabinet official looked through Perficott's proposal with a puzzled expression.
The cabinet official, recently promoted to fill the loyalist seat, apparently did not understand why Purphycott concocted such a proposal.
This is also the attitude of a considerable number of cabinet members when faced with Purficott's proposal. They believe that this matter is simply unnecessary.
Many people even think that this is just a trivial matter and not worthy of discussion at a cabinet meeting.
"Necessary? It seems that you simply cannot realize the significance of unifying weights and measures to the empire." Faced with the doubts of this cabinet member, Purficott showed an indescribable expression.
Purficott had some expectations that cabinet members would not realize the significance of establishing unified production standards.
After all, this lack of awareness among cabinet members in this era is understandable, and Purficott had this in mind when writing the proposal.
In fact, even if Purficott asked the same question to Europeans in the original nineteenth century, their answers would probably be the same as those of Victoria's cabinet members. Is this really necessary?
The reason why there are such counter-intuitive perceptions and questions is because Europeans in the original world only unified the measurement units in the 19th century.
Even though the French developed the international metric system at that time, the British still opposed the use of imperial units.
Europeans began to unify weights and measures, and it was only during the Napoleonic period at the end of the 18th century that Napoleon was conquering Europe, and the confusing units of measurement in European countries made him feel very inconvenient.
At that time, European countries also followed France's footsteps and gradually began to unify their own weights and measures. Then, under the promotion of France, the international metric system was established to pass through the European continent.
In this matter, a certain eastern power had already achieved this more than 200 years ago, leading Europeans by two thousand years.
The world actually faces the same problem, that is, all countries in the old world use their own measurement units, which makes international trade very inconvenient.
Originally, all this would be solved with the development of the Industrial Revolution. After all, one country has one set of units, which is too complicated to use.
Especially when some countries even have their own domestic units of measurement in a mess. Different regions use different units of measurement, and it is impossible to unify the units of measurement in their own country.
As for currency...oh, let's skip that, no one wants to figure out what a hell a place as big as Europe would be with hundreds of currency units.
Although this problem does bring some inconvenience in currency and daily life, it is not said to be particularly serious. But for industrial production, this is a nightmare.
Victoya itself has a unified unit of measurement, and the person who did this was the previous queen who had passed away.
As the empire gradually expanded, there were more and more colonies. Considering the trade between the colonies and the empire, the Queen issued a decree to unify the national measurement units. This allowed the Victoria Empire to have a unified standard unit of measurement. .
However, this is still a fairly immature measurement system.
You are just a unit of volume, but you have 11 different units of measurement! Pint, quart, gallon, bushel, canning, peck, portel...
Just counting these units and figuring out the conversion relationships between them is troublesome enough, not to mention that these are only units used to measure liquids.
Not to mention, due to the lack of sufficiently accurate standard units, there are also gaps between the standards used in various places and even different factories.
Purficott was in charge of the construction of flying battleships in the factory during this period, and he saw with his own eyes that under the same standard requirements, two different manufacturers could produce two completely different things.
At first she thought someone was cheating, but when she went to investigate, she discovered that both manufacturers were using their own measuring tools, and the error between the two tools was astonishingly large.
Faced with this situation, Purficott really had no choice but to get angry and order the two companies to send everything back and redo it.
The Royal Dockyard and their supporting downstream industries have a set of common units and are generally accurate. This is mainly because the downstream industries mainly provide services for the Royal Dockyard. Various issues have been worked through, and only then can different manufacturers be guaranteed precise measurement.
Read the original text in Liu#9@书/吧!
It is precisely because of this that Purficott needs to issue the current decree to unify weights and measures, so as to unify all the chaotic units, so that she can make the prototype of the standard unit of measurement and establish a set of effective units. system.
With unified units and standard measurement scales, the unified production specifications that Perfectcott really wanted to implement can truly play its role.
But although some people can't understand it, there's no problem with Purficott wanting to implement this bill.
After all, this is not a bill involving the political interests of all parties. It was Perficott who proposed the bill. She can rely on her own prestige to force the passage of this bill.
Because of this, although the bill was not passed unanimously, the cabinet itself had no objections to it.
Purficott is also very satisfied with this. She has to eat her meals one bite at a time and do things step by step. As long as everything can be carried out according to her ideas, she does not pursue unrealistic efficiency.
It is ridiculous to expect to be able to formulate unified production standards across the country before the general units are adopted nationwide.
As for how to formulate a unified unit of measurement, this is still the work of Purficott.
It's not that she doesn't want to leave things to others, but there is a high probability that others will not be able to do it well.
The reason is that Victory's original measurement unit has too much error, and the original instrument used for calibration does not even have a concept. It is still difficult for others to fully understand Purficott's intention, and how can they do it in their own arduous work? What about fulfilling her request?
Moreover, she does not plan to continue to use the various weird units in Viktoria, but plans to follow the example of France in the original world and implement a new unit system.
Among them, the unit of measurement is best established. One ten thousandth of the length of the prime meridian is established as a meter, and then the meter is cut into one hundred equal parts and established as a centimeter. A standard unit of length is considered to have a reference and standard.
It's just that measuring the prime meridian involves knowledge related to astronomy and mathematics. In the original world, it was something that even elementary school students could do, but in this world, it can even be called a project!
Faced with this situation, Purficott simply did not feel comfortable leaving this work to others.
After all, as an alchemist who can perform various precision operations, the huge role he can play at such a time is really irreplaceable.
Especially when it comes to determining the weight unit, alchemy's micromanipulation really plays a huge role.
Whether it is controlling the state of standard media to better conform to the standard, or making precise detailed adjustments, Alchemy is really easy to use.
One cubic meter of 4°C pure water weighs one ton. This sentence seems very simple, but it involves three different units of measurement. If Perfectcott did not do this himself, I am afraid that these three units They can fight between them.
There is no other reason, it just depends on who anchors whom first.
It's just that when the units of length and temperature are not established, it is really difficult to quantify what one cubic meter and 4°C are.
Especially the latter, do you know the standard atmospheric pressure? The quantitative measurement method of temperature is anchored by the morphological changes of water under standard atmospheric pressure, which involves more related disciplines and measurement methods.
Without Purficott's knowledge, it would be difficult to bring together so many complex measurement experiments and ensure that they can coordinate and cooperate.
After all, scientists of this era didn't know exactly how to develop new weights and measures.
Without Purficott, even if they have a clear goal, they still need to confirm and calculate repeatedly before they can find a way to specifically anchor it and anchor a target measurement unit.
Purficott naturally followed the same principle. She first calculated the length of the prime meridian, and then divided it into 10,000 equal parts. Then she confirmed the length of the meter and created a measuring prototype. Then she combined other units with Meters are bound together, thereby establishing an entire new measurement system.
As for the original national measurement unit, it will gradually be abandoned.
After all, it is really neither useful nor of any value or significance.
When each measurement unit is determined, the universal production standard based on the standard unit has a clear meaning, which can greatly improve the qualification rate of various parts required by Perfect Cot, and parts produced by different manufacturers can be Smooth universal.
Before that, even the most common parts like bolts could come in at least seven or eight specifications, which made Purficott even more excited.
(End of chapter)