On the morning of Friday, November 16, scientists and diplomats crammed into an auditorium in Versailles, a stone’s throw from the Sun King’s gilded chateau. Patrick Abbott, an American physicist, had ...

France holds the world’s standard for the kilogram weight. It’s a cylinder-shaped object that has dictated all other kilogram weights for 130 years now. As it’s made from platinum-iridium though, the ...

Since 1889, Le Grand K, a sleek cylinder of platinum-iridium metal, has ruled from its underground vault in Paris. An absolute monarch, it was the very definition of 1 kilogram of mass. Scientists ...

They will be the earth’s roundest spheres, crafted by Australian scientists as part of an international hunt to find a new global standard kilogram. Ever since scientists discovered that the current ...

A kilogram isnt what it used to be, this standard unit of measurement has been losing a little off the top. The standard kilogram has gotten lighter (NYT link) since it was first defined over a ...