In other words, the French introduced not only national standards, but a system of standards. It survives today as the metric system.

NARRATOR: The metric system is a way of measuring things. So with length, the metric measurements are millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres. A stamp, would be measured in millimetres.

It’s the American Way. Lengthy investigation suggests that this is about the only explanation for why the United States as a whole evades the metric system while most of the rest of the world ...

And Canadians do this all the time. Most of the world uses the metric system. The Americans use imperial. And then Canada uses an unholy amalgam of both. It’s one of our weirdest national traits ...

In the meantime, a new system of weights and measures, developed by French scientists following the Revolution of 1789, gained increasing international use. This metric system had as its fundamental ...