When who and why was the metric system developed?

Answer 1

1. The metric system is an internationally agreed decimal system of measurement that was originally based on the mètre des Archives and the kilogramme des Archives introduced by the French First Republic in1799. It was developed for the easiness of the fundamentals of the measurement and more flexibility.

Answer 2

At the time of the French Revolution (1789) many countries - and even some cities - had their own systems of measurement. Even more confusingly, they often used the same (or similar) words which referred to different quantities - for example like the US and Imperial gallons. The French philosopher, Marquis de Condorcet was charged with developing what he described as a system of measurement "for all people for all time". However, the project failed to get off the ground.

In 1837 the French re-adopted the metric system and it was soon adopted by an increasing number of scientists. James Clerk Maxwell, the British physicist, put forward the idea of having just 3 base units (length, mass, time) and deriving all other measurement units from this. This proved too ambitious since he could not describe electromagnetic forces in terms of the 3 basic units. In the modern system there are 7 basic units.

The French had ownership of the standard units but in 1875, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM, from its French title) took over the responsibility and since then has worked with various international bodies to establish the standards.

Any kind of trade is impossible if the two parties are using different measurement units. So internationally agreed standards were essential. Also, replacing all conversion between small and large units of the same measure by factors and multiples of 10, made the process of scaling up or down much simpler than previously.