The Meter, Golden Ratio, Pyramids, and Cubits, Oh My
4th March 2025
While we think of today’s metric system (SI) as mostly a modern invention (1960), we have been led to believe for many years now that its most fundamental base unit, the metre, originated in France in 1793, and represented one ten-millionth of the earth’s quadrant (the distance from the earth’s equator to the North Pole, as measured at sea level) . Yet just a few years ago, the late Pat Naughtin discovered that the proposal for a universal standard of length very close to the metre may in fact have originated much earlier, via Bishop John Wilkins, an English cleric and philosopher, and a member of the Royal Society, in the mid-1600s. Recent comments on Metric Views now bring even that assertion into doubt, with the discovery of a measuring device called the wand having been around much longer still.
It is known that the wand, divided into ten segments, was almost exactly, to within a few millimetres, the same length as today’s metre, and that it was used as long as 1000 years ago. But what if all these versions of the metre were simply the rediscovery (or the handing down over time) of a standard measure, equating to the metre, that was invented in Egypt over 4500 years ago?
When we think of units of measure used in Biblical times, the cubit usually springs to mind. In fact, opponents of metric conversion have often referred to the cubit, in jest at least, as having as much validity as the metre. Such people should be careful for what they wish for, for, as we shall see, the cubit and the metre may in fact be directly related – and remarkably both are directly traceable to the Great Pyramid at Giza.