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The history of the metric system began in the Age of Enlightenment with notions of length and weight taken from natural ones, and decimal multiples and fractions of them. The system became the standard of France and Europe in half a century. Other dimensions with unity ratios were added, and it went on to be adopted by the world.
The metric system was developed during the French Revolution to replace the various measures previously used in France. The metre is the unit of length in the metric system and was originally based on the dimensions of the earth, as far as it could be measured at the time. The litre, is the unit of volume and was defined as one thousandth of a cubic metre. The metric unit of mass is the kilogram and it was defined as the mass of one litre of water. The metric system was, in the words of French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, "for all people for all time".
References
- ↑ Cesare Emiliani (1992), Planet Earth, Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–12, ISBN 9780521409490
- ↑ H. Arthur Klein, The Science of Measurement: A Historical Survey, p. 448, Courier Corporation, 1974 ISBN 0486258394.
- ↑ Cardarelli, François (2003), Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures, London: Springer, p. 23, ISBN 978-1-4471-1122-1
- ↑ Ray E. Bolz (1973), CRC Handbook of Tables for Applied Engineering Science, CRC Press, p. 839, ISBN 978-0849302527