Metric conversion: how soon? (includes related articles)

Public Roads | June 22, 1995| | Copyright

When guillotines fell during the French Revolution their blades were measured in a new unit of length, centimeters, not inches. The metric system was literally a revolutionary idea, growing out of the Age of Reason and carried along with Napoleon's soldiers many kilometers, not miles, across Europe and from there to countries around the globe.

In our own rational, revolutionary republic, Thomas Jefferson considered the new metric system an admirable advance over old English feet, pints, and pounds. Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and many other leading American thinkers ...

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