It was redefined as 3 feet...
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It was not. The current definition was established in 1983.
The meter was defined by the French Academy of Sciences as the length between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar, which was designed to represent one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole through Paris.In 1983, the meter was redefined as the distance traveled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second.
There are several standards of measurement: weight, length, time to name a few. The standard for weight is the kilogram. The standard was made in London and has been stored in Paris since 1889. See this NPR article for a recent update (8/20/2009): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112003322 The standard for length is the meter, or metre. Until 1983, this standard was a platinum-iridium bar that rested next to the kilogram standard at the French Academy of Sciences. In 1983, the metre was redefined as the distance travelled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter The standard for time is the second. "Currently, the international unit of time, the second, is defined in terms of radiation emitted by caesium atoms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time Most standards are abstracts, with qualities or characteristics not affixed to a particular object or instance, such as a number. These standards have no place to be kept, except in the imagination of those who conceive of them.
Historically, the metre was defined by the French Academy of Sciences as the length between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar, which was designed to represent 1⁄10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole through Paris. In 1983, it was redefined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) as the distance travelled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second
The metre was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator, at sea level along the meridian that passed through Paris. Unfortunately, improvements in metrology meant that a measure that was meant to be a standard was not constant! So, in 1983 it was re-defined as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second