Metrics

Pop quiz: What does the United States of America, Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia have in common?

The answer is they are the only countries left that officially use the old Imperial system of measurement. The rest of the world have quite happily embraced the Metric system. It must be pointed out that the U.K still uses Imperial in their daily lives, although they are Metric on paper at least. They also still, for some reason, like to use Stone as a measurement of weight. A stone is 6.35 kilograms or 14 pounds.

The Metric system was developed in France at the end of the 18^th century and quickly spread across the world due to its logical nature. Everything slots neatly together no matter what you need. 1 liter of water weighs 1 kilogram and occupies 1 cubic decimeter of space. Nice and easy. It even works well with the Centigrade system of measuring temperature.

Fun fact: Celsius originally wanted the scale to mean that water froze at 100 degrees and boiled at 0. It was flipped upside down after his death by either Carl von Linné (the guy who created the naming system for all animals and plants) or by the French scientist Jean-Pierre Christin. Wikipedia unhelpfully claims that both did it. Maybe it was a cooperative effort. After all, it could have been a large thermometer...

Anyway, the U.S very nearly did adopt the Metric system back in the day. We go back to the time just after the American Revolution. George Washington was president, and future president and founding father Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, and in charge of the details.

In 1793, French aristocrat and botanist Joseph Dombey set sail from Paris to Philadelphia carrying with him a rod that was precisely one meter in length and a copper bar that was one kilogram. Jefferson was known to be a fan of decimals and in need of an official system of measurement. It may seem strange to us now, but the newly created nation was in shambles. States and even cities printed their own money, they very nearly had a civil war and no one listened to the new government or indeed paid their taxes. Some people liked things to be like they always were, while others wanted nothing to do with the old British way of life.

So the stage was set for the Metric system to take the newly minted United States by storm. Except an actual storm blew Dombey's ship way off course and right into the Caribbean. There he was captured by pirates who didn't have any sympathy for Dombey's important mission. Instead they tossed him in a cell and sold his belongings, and that is the last time anyone saw poor old Joseph.

Did piracy derail the metric system in the United States of America? Yes and no. Sure it seems that Dombey's sad story is real, but no one know if the young nation would have adopted the Metric system or not, no matter how efficient it is. Sometimes people are stubborn just to be difficult.

Anyway, that's enough for today. Until next time, have a great week!