Bad science writing...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/12/shrinking.kilogram.ap/index.html
"The meter was once defined as roughly the distance between scratches on a bar, a far cry from today's high-tech standard involving the distance that light travels in a vacuum." (emphasis mine)
"The meter was once defined as roughly the distance between scratches on a bar, a far cry from today's high-tech standard involving the distance that light travels in a vacuum." (emphasis mine)