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The Metric System: A Step toward Bringing Nations Together

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to the problem of turning the French decimal system into an international one. The author traces the introduction of the metric system in most of the countries of Europe, Asia and America and simultaneously looks into the motives and the conditions in which that system was accepted by the various states. He examines the events from the first attempts at imposing it within the vast empire of Napoleon that did not succeed, among the reasons being the natural reaction to the French having infringed on the independence of the annexed territories, until now, when countries like the United States, England and the rest of the states of the British Commonwealth are facing the enormous difficulties accompanying the belated metric reform and have to pay the immense price for their almost 150 years old resistance to the French metric system. When as early as the end of the 18th century the metric system was introduced in France it was regarded as a future international institution. It had to be a measure (according to the sumptuous terminology of the French revolution) "for all nations and for all times". Historical development confirmed that prognosis. The initial resistance against the "foreign" measures was followed by the gradual awakening to the need of a universal metrology language that would remove the barriers in the sphere of international trade, science and technology and was put an end to with the voluntary incorporation into the system of more and more countries with different political orientation and economic standards. In this sense the metric system can be regarded as a consciously accepted necessity of a consensus in the sphere of metrology, of a general convention that would supply the basis for a unified vision in the field of measures and the precision of measuring.

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