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The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French Système international d'unités), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official status in nearly every country in the world, employed in science ...
The U.S. government passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which made the metric system "the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce". The legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry as it voluntarily converts to the metric system, i.e., metrification. This is most ...
Metric signs and metric measurements were removed for the 2009 edition and replaced with an appendix of metric conversion tables. This is in marked contrast to the position in the (largely metric) United Kingdom , where metric road signs are prohibited by law (except for those denoting widths and height restrictions, which include both metric ...
Mesures usuelles (French for customary measures) were a system of measurement introduced as a compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements. It was used in France from 1812 to 1839. A number of variations on the metric system have been in use.
SI allows for the use of larger prefixed units based on the second, a system known as metric time, but this is seldom used, since the number of seconds in a day (86,400 or, in rare cases, 86,401) negate one of the metric system's primary advantages: easy conversion by multiplying or dividing by powers of ten.
In 1965, the UK began an official programme of metrication, and as of 2025, in the United Kingdom the metric is the official measurement system for all regulated trading by weight or measure purposes, however imperial pint remains the sole legal unit for milk in returnable bottles and for draught beer and cider in British pubs.
The metric system is a system of measurement that standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes.
American surveyors use a decimal-based system of measurement devised by Edmund Gunter in 1620. The base unit is Gunter's chain of 66 feet (20 m) which is subdivided into 4 rods, each of 16.5 ft or 100 links of 0.66 feet. A link is abbreviated "lk", and links "lks", in old deeds and land surveys done for the government.