Question #ec8be
1 Answer
A universal system of measurement that can be understood by any and every scientist from around the globe is one of the most essential things in any scientist's toolkit.
The metric system (a.k.a., the SI [ Système International d'Unités ], French for the "International System of Units") was first implemented worldwide in 1960 because, for decades, centuries even, different countries had different, localized systems of units. For example, the British had different measurements to indicate volume, like quarts or pints (this is called the British Imperial System), than their French counterparts - the French Imperial System had stères and litres.
This, of course, was very confusing because that required a lot of conversions of units that most people were not very familiar with. When the metric system was first devised, scientists almost immediately liked it - its use of conversion factors based entirely on increasing or decreasing multiples of 10 (1, 10, 100, etc.) was simple and easy to understand, unlike the confusing quarts or pints or stères or litres, each with very different conversion factors.
Today, nearly every country in the world (with the exception of the United States, Burma, and Liberia) uses the metric system: every road is (fill-in-the-blank) kilometers long, every building is (fill-in-the-blank) meters tall, every person is (fill-in-the-blank) kilograms in weight.
I really hope this helped you.
If you'd like to learn more, here are some sites I think will more fully explain what I have summarized:
Units of measurement in France - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
International System of Units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
