ABSTRACT

This chapter explores a story about a balancing act that is located between global and national requirements. It is the story of the introduction of new measures and weights and, in particular, the metric system in Switzerland over the course of the 19th century. Units of measurement and weight are among the oldest objects that humans use to bring order into their world and to organize social exchange. Modern systems of measurement were characterized by being determined through the methods of natural science, and in this context the metric system was the method of choice for the scientists in Switzerland. In the cantons where the formation of the federal state actually did entail changing the metrology system, the situation was altogether different. In the canton of Vaud, arithmetic books largely ignored the new Swiss units of measurement. In the end, the Federal Council's solution was a typically Swiss compromise.