# Is the definition of the meter arbitrary? [duplicate]

From Wikipedia, the definition of the meter is

The meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds.

Why is this number of seconds chosen? Is there a motivation for this choice?

• Did you read the sentences that follow the one you are quoting? Or the section titled Distance travelled by light in a specified time? Nov 22 '16 at 18:33
• Possible duplicates: physics.stackexchange.com/q/178660/2451 , physics.stackexchange.com/q/243144/2451 and links therein. Nov 22 '16 at 18:36
• @EmilioPisanty - I have found no question that is a duplicate of this one. There are other, related question such as this one - and one could reasonably deduce the answer to this question from the answer to that one. But the question posed here appears to be different. Specifically - the question about the "arbitrary" definition of the second, while related to the "arbitrary" definition of the meter, is clearly different. The fact that the answer is the same ("because we chose to define the speed of light") is irrelevant, I think. Nov 22 '16 at 19:27
• Nov 23 '16 at 11:20
• Nov 23 '16 at 11:25