Early Measurement History to

Metric System

The Cubit . . .

The Fathom . . .

The Hand/span . . .

The Pace . . .

The cubit is the measure from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger when your arm is extended.

The fathom is the measure from fingertip to fingertip when your arms are stretched sideways as far as they will go. You sometimes see a rope or fabric measured in this way.

The hand-span is the measure from the tip of your pinky to the tip of your thumb when your hand is stretched out.

The pace is the measure of distance from one step to another.

By the eighteenth century, dozens of different units of measurement were commonly used throughout the world.

The lack of common standards led to a lot of confusion in trade between countries.

At the end of the century, the French government sought to solve this problem.

Enter…The Metric System

In 1790, the French National Assembly commissioned the Academy of Science to design a simple decimal-based system of units.

The system they devised is known as the metric system.

In 1960, the metric system was officially named the Système International d'Unités (or SI for short) and is now used in nearly every country in the world except the United States.

Enter…The Metric System

Enter…The Metric System

The metre was originally calculated as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator through Paris, but it is now defined in terms of wave length.