Why the kilogram is changing forever
The way we decide the weight of everything on Earth is wrong
The end is nigh for the kilogram as we know it, or at least how metrologists – scientists who measure things for a living – know it.
On 16 November 2018, representatives of the 160 metre convention states met in Versailles, France, voted to bid the SI base units’ old definitions farewell. The overhaul will do away with the kilogram artefact, the last remaining object to define a unit and introduce a metric system described in terms of universal natural constants.