Americans have long used diverse weights and measures, reflecting their diverse origins. From colonial times, converting from one unit to another was part of courses in commercial arithmetic. The ...

Taking the first steps of what would be a major historical advance in the science of measurement, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is participating in a worldwide effort to ...

1 In late 1975, President Gerald Ford had a unique vision for making America great again. He wanted to embrace a French invention – one that Thomas Jefferson himself had championed. He wanted America ...

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 ...

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 ...

Your Vox Membership goes further this holiday season. When you buy an annual membership, we’ll give one to someone who can’t afford access. It’s a simple way for you to support Vox’s journalism and ...

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 ...

In the late nineteenth century, both American and foreign manufacturers sometimes adopted metric units to meet the needs of international customers and demonstrate their own modernity. Others, ...