A brief history of the unit of mass: continuity of successive definitions of the kilogram

Abstract

The very first definition of the kilogram was in terms of a constant of nature, although this idea could not be fully realized at the end of the 18th century. Instead the kilogram was defined by an artefact whose mass was made to approximate as closely as possible a physical constant with unit kg m−3—the maximum density of distilled water at atmospheric pressure. For the next two centuries, mass comparators improved greatly as did the materials from which artefacts could be constructed. These improvements put tighter constraints on the realization of a non-artefact definition of the kilogram. However, it is now expected that the goal of redefining the kilogram in terms of fundamental constants will be achieved in 2018. We present a history of the kilogram with emphasis on continuity of this unit of mass each time it has been redefined and the stability of a unit defined by the mass of an artefact.