In other words, the French introduced not only national standards, but a system of standards. It survives today as the metric system.

All countries use the metric system to varying degrees. Most of the world has adopted the metric system as their official system of measurement with one major exception: the United States.

It’s the American Way. Lengthy investigation suggests that this is about the only explanation for why the United States as a whole evades the metric system while most of the rest of the world ...

NARRATOR: The metric system is a way of measuring things. So with length, the metric measurements are millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres. A stamp, would be measured in millimetres.

In the meantime, a new system of weights and measures, developed by French scientists following the Revolution of 1789, gained increasing international use. This metric system had as its fundamental ...

While most of the rest of the world uses the metric system (formally known as the International System of Units, or SI), the United States uses the U.S. Customary System, which—fun fact—is ...