The Metric System
by David Barth, written May 5, 2008
This information was derived from an article entitled, "The Trouble with the Meter," of the March 2008, issue of
Wired.
This information was derived from an article entitled, "The Trouble with the Meter," on page 73 of the May 2005 issue
of Technology Review.
The metric system was created in 1793 by the French Academy of Sciences which defined it as one ten-millionth of a
quarter-meridian. A quarter-meridian is the distance from the equator to a pole. A platinum meter bar was presented
to the French legislature in 1799. In 1983 the 51-nation General Conference on Weights and Measures defined the
meter as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
The Systeme International d'Unites (SI) identifies seven basic units of measure, the meter, kilogram, second, ampere,
kelvin, mole, and candela. In additions 22 additional measures are defined to include every major scientific
discipline.
To force the public to embrace new measuring systems, some countries have imposed penalties on people who use an older
measurement system. For example, an English grocer was sentenced to probation in 2001 for selling bananas by the pound
instead of the kilogram.
In the early 1970s, the U.S. began putting up speed limit and distance signs in both miles and kilometers, but the
practice was reversed due to public protests.
In most countries around the world, the metric system has become lingua franca.