or among units of length, volume and weight. In other words, the French introduced not only national standards, but a system of standards. It survives today as the metric system.

system but which metric advocates derisively refer to as FFU (Fred Flintstone Units). So I could have probably said to my editor, “That’s typical FFU.” But of course I didn’t. Such lack of ...

Hillger says that even countries that have fully adopted the metric system also measure certain things in U.S. customary units or their own local system of measurement. “Even in your best metric ...

This metric system had as its fundamental unit of length the meter, defined to be a small fraction of the length of a meridian of the earth. Other units of length were decimal multiples or fractions ...