07.04



1795 - The adoption of the metric system in France. Val confusion with the acceleration of progress is growing - both in science and in the trade. In order to bring chaos to a common denominator, the French Academy of Sciences has developed a system in which the unit of length adopted the meter per unit of mass - kilogram and called the metric system. To anyone hurt it was not, as a basis decided not to take the units that existed at that time. Meter - "artificial" unit of length equal to one ten-millionth of a quarter of the Parisian geographical meridian. Artificial in the sense that it is not tied to the units, which were somehow linked anciently with the "human factor" - elbow length, phalanx, step width, etc. It was conceived as an international system, but at first it went slow. France passed a decree on the metric after 1837, and only in 1875 was adopted by the Convention, which was signed by 17 countries. Note, by the way, an episode of "Pulp Fiction"?
You know, as it is called in France chetvertfuntovik?
-No
-Tell Them, Vince
 - Royal Chiiz "!?
You know why?
 - Perhaps because of the metric system
.  - Yes you - nerd !!! ..
Yes, the US has not switched to the metric system.
After independence, the United States tried to bring order to this voprose.No they rested, as often happens in a financial issue. Thomas Jefferson, who served under George Washington as US Secretary of State, approved of the decimal system. But it turned out that define the metric unit of length would be impossible without sending a delegation to France. And it was a costly affair.
Then a lot of things happened - the cooling of relations with France, ocheerednye attempts, which broke on the "see no need to change anything»
. And today a significant part of the largest corporations in the world are located in the United States. Their products are competitive in the world market despite the unusual inches and pounds. What's unusual! The whole world is very surprised if one day another diagonal screen smartphone will be available in the usual from school centimeters, not inches, seemingly descended from the pages of a history book. This means that the Americans have no reason to abandon their traditional systems of weights and measures.

Tags

See also

New and interesting