Why the metric system isn't metric

Alright, so scientists like the metric system because it is consistent with itself, rather than being arbitrary like the "standard" system. In other words, 1 kilometer = 1,000 meters = 100,000 centimeters = 10,000,000 millimeters as opposed to 1 mile = 5,280 feet = 63,360 inches. Round numbers are nice, and easier to remember and convert between.

So it struck me as funny when I read this article today. Basically, there's a single block of metal in Paris that officially represents 1 kilogram, and scientists are concerned because it doesn't weigh what it used to, by a few billionths of a gram.

See the thing about measurement is that it's always relative. It just so happens that the entire system of metric weight is relative to this single chunk of metal in Paris. I mean, they had to pick something. But if their baseline is changing, what's a scientist to do?

Well, you reverse-engineer it of course. As the article points out, it's been done before, with the meter. The baseline for 1 meter used to be a stick next to the one kilogram chunk, but they decided to make it "less arbitrary" by defining a meter as the distance light travels in... wait for it... 1/299,792,458th of a second. Phew, thanks guys, glad you cleared that up.

I decided to hit Wikipedia to figure out where they came up with this number. It turns out that they based it on the fact that light travels 299,792,458 meters per second. You see what they did there? They used the speed of light, measured in meters, to define the length of a meter. Wow, impressive. In reality all they did was take two "non-relative" units of measurement - the speed of light, and one second - and figure out how much of each it would take to come up with the length we were already using. So if you know the speed of light, and you can remember the number 299,792,458, you can figure out how far a meter is.

That's all well and good, except a second is no less relative. 1 second is 1/60th of a minute, which is 1/60th of an hour, which is 1/24th of a day, which is 1/365th of the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun. Fortunately, science reverse-engineered the second as well, and decided that it can be expressed as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom". And no, I have no idea what that means. However, it's just another example of taking "non-relative" units of measurement to define an existing "standard".

Does this seem a little ridiculous to anyone else? I mean, science has other systems of measurement based on "natural units", or dimensions based on nature. It seems like those would be the best systems to use for scientific endeavors while leaving inches and seconds and pounds to the rest of us. There has to be a way to convert from one to the other, I suppose, but still... at some point it just seems silly.

I hope there's intelligent life on other planets. I hope we someday meet that life. I want to watch our scientists explain to them that to get to the U.N. building, they just need to head towards the positive planetary magnetic pole for the distance that light travels in 1/299,792th of the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom, then take a left.