Closeup of National Prototype Meter Bar No. 27, made in 1889 by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and given to the United States, which served as the standard for defining all units of length in the US from 1893 to 1960. In 1960 the SI changed the standard of length to define the meter by the wavelength of light of a spectral line of krypton 86. This bar is now in the collection of the NIST Museum, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. After the Treaty of the Meter had been signed in 1875, the BIPM in Sevres, France made 30 prototype standard bars of 90% platinum–10% iridium alloy. One of the bars was selected as the International Meter. Small elliptical areas on the upper surface of the central rib at each end of the bars were highly polished, and three lines, nominally 0.5 mm apart, were ruled on these surfaces, the distance between the middle lines of each group at the temperature of freezing water defining the meter. After selecting the bar to be used as the International Prototype Meter, the other bars were calibrated relative to it and given to nations to serve as their national standards. The United States received National Prototype Meters No. 27 and No. 21 in 1890.
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