The revolution gave an opportunity for drastic change with an official ideology of "pure reason". The creators of this metric system tried to choose units that were logical and practical. The first official adoption of such a system occurred in France in 1791 during the French Revolution of 1789 et sqq. The inconsistency problem was not one of different units but one of differing sized units so instead of simply standardizing size of the existing units, the leaders of the French revolutionary governments decided that a completely new system should be adopted. A unified country with a single currency and a countrywide market, as most European countries were becoming by the end of the 18th century, had a very strong economic incentive and was in a position to break with this situation and standardise on a measuring system. The proliferation of disparate measurement systems was one of the most frequent causes of disputes amongst merchants and between citizens and tax collectors. The modern metric system ( modern meaning post-1960) is now widely used throughout the world and is called theInternational System of Units (SI) (" Système International d'Unités" in French). Some of the common prefixes are, however, rarely used for some units: the expressions hectometre, megametre and megagram are hardly ever heard, neither are decigram and centigram, while hectogram (often shortened to hecto), megalitre, decimetre and centimetre are commonly used measures in many countries.Īs the result of scientific progress, refinements, and different choices of base units, there have been a number of attempts at creating metric systems.
below the base value) are deci- (tenth), centi- (hundredth) and milli- (thousandth). The most commonly used prefixes for values above the base unit are hecto- (hundred), kilo- (thousand) and mega- (million) and the most commonly used for parts of the base value (i.e. This relationship is compatible with the decimal system of numbers and it contributes greatly to the convenience of metric units. Multiples and submultiples of metric units are related by powers of ten the names for these are formed with prefixes. Other units were derived from this, such as the Celsius temperature scale, where water freezes as 0☌ and boils as 100☌. These were derived from each other via the properties of natural objects, mainly water: 1 litre of water weighs 1 kg and measures 1 cubic decimetre (dm³). In the early metric system there were several fundamental or base units, the grad or grade for angles, the metre for length, the gram for weight and the litre for capacity. The metric system is a system of units for measurement developed in late 18th century France by the chemist Lavoisier to replace the disparate systems of measures then in use with a unified, natural and universal system.