Metric Units for the Solar System is an exploration of our relationship with the systems of ‘standardized units’ we have created to order society; examining the various tensions implicit in the ...

As ever more digital data is created and stored, the world needs more unit measurements to keep up with the ever-expanding numbers. To do so, the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures on ...

The French government adopted this new metric system on April 7, 1795. A conference including scientists from France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and Italy worked from 1798 to 1799 ...

An oft-repeated "weird fact" is the claim that, if not for the scourge of Caribbean piracy, the United States would have adopted the metric system in the 1790s, making it the country's standard system ...

Have you ever noticed that systems of measurement tends to change when you leave the United States? Weight is typically measured in kilograms instead of pounds, distance is measured in kilometers over ...

Balancing act The two systems of measurement – imperial and metric – are often used together in UK shops. (Courtesy: iStock/Paolo Paradiso) When I was at primary school in the 1960s, measurements were ...

America’s reluctance to convert to the metric system was once famously lampooned by television’s longest-running animated sitcom, "The Simpsons," in an episode from way back in the Nineties. During a ...

Sign up to our free Brexit newsletter for our analysis of the continuing impact of Brexit on the UK Sign up to our free newsletter for the latest analysis on Brexit's ...

The inch, based on the length of a thumb, and the foot based on, well, the length of a foot, are inherently associated with human scale (Getty/iStock) Sign up to our free Brexit newsletter for our ...

The Imperial Measurement System, originated in Britain in 1824, is now primarily used by only three countries: the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar. Defined by non-decimal units like inches, pounds ...