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A side-benefit of this project (The Avogadro Project) is that there are a load of interesting things you can do with almost-pure Silicon-28, e.g. see http://www.nist.gov/pml/div684/enriched-silicon-project.cfm (and more besides: there was a really interesting paper I saw recently which irritatingly I can't find now)

That is really cool

... is that _aluminum foil_ wrapped around a hose in one of the pictures ? I wrapped an unshielded 12 foot vga cable in aluminum foil once and it greatly (subjectively) improved the video quality.

^This. It's well explained in this YT video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMByI4s-D-Y

I completely agree, It's time to start counting atoms/molecules of something (being careful with isotopes). Integer numbers are very good for "perfect" (well, very good) abstract definitions.

And it would also really prolong the French Revolution spirit in the sense that this unit would become so universal that you don't need a physical reference anymore, like what we could achieve with the other base units (like second then meter).