“The story of the metric system starts, somewhat unexpectedly, in 17th Century England, with the proposal by the natural philosopher John Wilkins for a consistently decimal system of units. The Europe of his time was divided by the use of innumerable different systems of measure, with each country using its own traditional units (and in many cases, a lack of even national standardisation meant that different regions within countries would use their own measures). To remedy this, Wilkins conceived of a single, rational standard, based on the best science of his time, which all nations could equally share. His idea for a “universal Measure” was not adopted in his era, although that very phrase would ultimately (via Greek translation) give us the name of the metre.”Image
Comment on Tiddies are nice but the metric system is better
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Wait, no, please convince my countryfolk to metricate. I’m an engineer and desperately want to be able to design things in metric. It’s so much better but the average American doesn’t know a meter from a hole in their ass
YragNitram1956@feddit.uk 1 week ago
Lehmuusa@nord.pub 1 week ago
the average American doesn’t know a meter from a hole in their ass
Do they actually know yards? A metre is pretty close to one yard. If you know yard, you know the metre.
josephc@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Normalize it. Use meters and kilograms on your own even before legislation. Convince others to use it. Push back the storm. If a handful of people in your town use it then it goes from something that nobody uses to a thing that a few people (and the rest of the world) use. Be the change you want to see.