Concert invitation (2075.)
Hi, you are invited to a concert set to take place in Metroteka on World Metrology Day, May 20th 2075, in celebration of the 200 year anniversary of the Meter Convention. For his 99th birthday, by means of wormhole travel, general manager Siniša Prugovečki shall perform Prelude 1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier alongside Johann Sebastian Bach himself. Bach will solely be playing the right hand part of the piece from 1722, and thus will not be familiar with the concepts of meters or seconds, given the International System of Units (SI) had not yet been established.
International System of Units (1875.)
The origins of establishing an international unit system started about 40 years after Bach's death, when king Louis XVI put it in his head he would implement this system by hiring scientists led by the renowned French chemist Lavoisier. Before long, Louis XVI lost his head and a year later the same fate would fall upon Lavoisier. After a few revolutionary governments, Napoleon Bonaparte set the conditions for starting the process of unit standardisation, culminating with The Meter Convention on May 20th 1875.
Bach (1722.)
The Well-Tempered Clavier's collection of preludes and fugues was an expression of Bach's strong desire for pianos to be able to be tuned/calibrated in a way that would enable them to be played in all musical keys without additional adjustment/tuning. Today we take for granted the fact that pianists don't tune their instruments between compositions. However, just like The Meter Convention, such instrument adjusting is in fact a historical compromise.
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The Well-Tempered Clavier
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The right hand is 1% slower than the left hand.
1% -
The right hand is 2% slower than the left hand.
2% -
The right hand is 5% slower than the left hand.
5% -
Bach's piano is calibrated to a 1% higher frequency.
1% -
Bach's piano is calibrated to a 2% higher frequency.
2% -
Bach's piano is calibrated to a 5% higher frequency.
5% -
The measurement uncertainty of the frequency for passing information through a wormhole is ±1%.
±1% -
The measurement uncertainty of the frequency for passing information through a wormhole is ±2%.
±2% -
The measurement uncertainty of the frequency for passing information through a wormhole is ±5%.
±5%
