The content below comes from pages 5 to 7 of the pdf of this issue.
Future perfect:
International System of Units Revised
By Helen Gavaghan
We all measure things, be it flour for a cake, the distance to the shops or the temperature in a room.
Politics, the climate change debate, international relations, pretty much everything humanity does in
a transactional or investigatory manner depends on standards for such measurements, standards
which cross borders, cultures and languages. National Metrology Institutes (metrology is the
science of measuring things) have worked for decades with international bodies to slowly redefine
the basic units of weights and measures in a manner relating to fundamental constants of nature
and the properties of atoms, given the laws of nature as currently understood. As the culmination of
that effort on 16th November 2018 the nations of the Bureau International des Poid et Mesures
(BIPM) voted unanimously (according to voting rules) to adopt a new System Internationale of
measurement units. The new regime comes into effect in May 2019.
The formal path to November's vote began at the 24th meeting in 2011 of the BIPM's ruling body,
"The General Conference on Weights and Measures". BIPM is an International Governmental
Organisation (IGO) which was established by convention in May 1875.
The basic units of the SI system are: the meter (length), kilogram (weight), the kelvin
thermodynamic temperature), the mole (amount of a substance), time (the second), electric current
(ampere) and luminous intensity (candela). From these seven units all of the SI system is built. For
example a Pascal is the SI unit of pressure or stress. A Pascal is constructed from the basic units for
length, weight and time, and it is the inverse of a metre, times one kilogram, per second squared.
It is because the entire SI (System International) is built on the seven basic units of measurement
that a universally accepted precise and unchangeable (as far as is understandable given current
knowledge of the laws of nature) definition of a single metre, kilogram etc... is so important to
science and politics today.
The final piece in this transitional jigsaw was shifting the definition of a kilogram from a physical
object to being in relationship to a universal constant, namely Planck's constant. The 2011 meeting
of CGPM wrote, "the kilogram will continue as the unit of mass, but its magnitude will be set by fixing
the numerical value of the Planck constant to be equal to exactly 6.626,070 x1034JS" (a Joule is the
SI unit of energy, and is metres squared, times a kilogram, times the inverse of seconds squared.
But the vote of 16th November 2018 was of much more profound significance than this change to
the kilogram. It is the culmination of atomic, particle and astrophysics and math exploration,
enabling the non material to define the material.
The 2018 CGPM: https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2018/ (Accessed 18.12.18).
Editor's recommendation: 10 out of 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA67T7FPBME
And the 2011 resolutions which set the transition in motion,
https://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/24/1/ (Accessed 17th December, 2018).
The critical resolution. https://www.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/CGPM/Convocation-2018.pdf#page=30
END OF PAGE FIVE OF THE PDF
PAGE SIX
NEWS
Cluster munitions
On 11th December, 2018 Gambia ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CMM), and the
Convention will come into effect for Gambia in 1st June, 2019.
The CMM is related to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production
and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Use and Destruction, and other Conventions and
Protocols covering conventional weapons. CMM was adopted as a Convention in 2008, and
entered into force on 1st August, 2010 when it had been ratified by 30 countries. The text defines
cluster munitions, and states what is not covered. In line with the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities, the CMM calls for adequate care and rehabilitation of victims of cluster
munitions and for clearance of contaminated areas. HG.
Gambia Ratification of CMM: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CN/2018/CN.585.2018-Eng.pdf
Convention on cluster munitions: https://www.un.org/disarmament/ccm/
Star formation
Hold out your thumb and line it up with my forehead, said Dr Paul Clark, an astronomer from the
University of Cardiff. He was speaking to secondary school students as he gave the annual astrophysics lecture at The University of Leeds on 28th November. "Now keep your thumb still, and move your head to the left, now to the right ," said Dr Clark. "You look really funny when you do that, what
are you doing?" Came the reply, "Parallaxing."
The topic was star formation. "While colleagues here go and view from telescopes, I work with simulation on massive computers." The upside of his job, said Dr Clark, is "I don't have to wait 2 million years to figure out what is going on." Needless to say, without the observational astronomers Dr
Clark would have no guidelines for his astronomical algorithms. He showed spectacular photo
graphs of starscapes, trying to give a sense of the immensity of the time and space encompassed.
Within that single pixel, he said of one photograph, lies the Carina Nebula.
So much remains unknown, said Dr Clark. Perhaps when stars form in clusters they compete for
mass? He told the audience dark matter drives the evolution of our visible structured Universe. To
the student who asked what existed before The Big Bang Dr Clark said the correct physics answer
is that before the Big Bang time did not exist. "The Big Bang created time and space." HG
Parallax: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/teachers/attachments/parallax.html
FIGHT CONTINUES AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING AT COP24 IN KATOWICE, POLAND.
A current consensus on implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement was reached 15th December this
year. That outcome from an international meeting, COP24, is to be found at: https://unfccc.int/sites/
default/files/resource/Informal%20Compilation_proposal%20by%20the%20President_rev.pdf See
also the following link if you are new to the detail of UN climate change work: https://unfccc.int/.
The international meeting was held in Katowice, Poland, and is the most recent in a series of international conferences. It sought practical implementations of earlier agreements.HG
END OF PAGE SIX OF THE PDF
PAGE SEVEN OF THE PDF
World Trade Concern
Roberto Azevédo, director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on 11th December
presented to the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO his report on trade-related developments for the year from mid 2017 to mid 2018.*
Entitled "Overview of Developments in the International Trading Environment" the work, which is a Trade Monitoring Report, notes a higher number of trade restrictive practises compared with last year. Those measures are commensurate with an increase to USD588 billion in the value of world trade impacted by such restrictions. That figure is 7 times larger than for the previous year. In the same period there was an increase in measures facilitating trade, which encompassed
USD295 billion of global trade, some 1.8 times larger than the previous year. The report terms the situation a "proliferation" of trade restrictions, and calls on WTO Member States to de-escalate a situation which could jeopardise global economic recovery.
Member States concerned about restrictive trade practises, such as import substitution by, for example, favouring domestic producers when evaluating tenders, or dumping, or subsidised exports can initiate investigations via the WTO. Such inquiries are known as trade remedy investigations. The report estimates that the value of trade covered In 2017-18 by trade remedy investigations was USD93.6 billion, some USD17 billion higher than last year.
During the year there was protectionist rhetoric, as well as greater trade tensions and a slowing of global economic growth. World financial conditions tightened. Trade, concludes the report, should continue to grow in 2018-19, but less rapidly than forecast. HG.
*Overview of developments in the international trading environment. Item 2 (263 pages)
https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/FE_Search/FE_S_S006.aspx?Query=@Symbol=%20(wt/tpr/ov/21*)&Language=ENGLISH&Context=FomerScriptedSearch&languageUIChanged=true#
Basis: Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/invest_e/invest_info_e.htm Accessed 20.12.2018.
Technical preparations for a low sulphur fuel-oil regime at sea continue.
The 100th meeting of the Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Organisation
concluded safety issues should not deter implementation of the new rules limiting fuel sulphur
content to no more 0.5 percent. Implementation for the new rule is 1st January 2020. The aim is to reduce air born pollutants resulting from burning fuels in the maritime environment. The MSC also agreed safety of burning such fuels should be considered further at its next meeting. Questions
arising include impact on operation of the equipment involved in burning maritime fuel. HG.
100th Maritime Safety Committee of 3-7 December, 2018. Summary of outcomes.
http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/MeetingSummaries/MSC/Pages/MSC-100th-session.aspx
EU briefing on air pollution from maritime transport. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/sources/maritime.htm (Accessed 18.12.2018)
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