Universality Metric system

chinese road sign listing distances on expressway in eastern beijing. although primary text in chinese, distances use internationally recognised characters.

at outbreak of french revolution in 1789, countries , cities had own system of measurement. although different countries might have used units of measure same name, such foot, or local language equivalents such pied, fuß, , voet, there no consistency in magnitude of units, nor in relationships multiples , submultiples, modern-day differences between , uk pints , gallons.

the metric system designed universal—in words of french philosopher marquis de condorcet people time . designed ordinary people, engineers worked in human-related measurements , astronomers , physicists worked numbers both small , large, hence huge range of prefixes have been defined in si.

when french government first investigated idea of overhauling system of measurement, concept of universality put practice in 1789: maurice de talleyrand, acting on condorcet s advice, invited john riggs miller, british parliamentarian , thomas jefferson, american secretary of state george washington, work french in producing international standard promoting legislation in respective legislative bodies. however, these overtures failed , custody of metric system remained in hands of french government until 1875.

in languages distinction made, unit names common nouns (i.e. not proper nouns). use character set , follow grammatical rules of language concerned, example kilomètre , kilómetro , each unit has symbol independent of language, example km kilometre , v volts etc.