The metric system was created in France, and it was the French Revolution that sparked the reform of the country’s outdated system of measurement.

The earliest form of the metric system was proposed by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. He even reached out to the British government to encourage the adoption of this new system in both France and England, but the British initially refused.

The metric system is intentionally based on the concept of tens, and the word decimal is ultimately derived from the Latin word for ten.

Many SI units of measurement are named after famous scientists. Notable examples include Sir Isaac Newton, James Watt, and Nikola Tesla.

Today, nearly every country in the world uses the metric system as its official standard. However, the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar are the only countries that have not fully adopted it officially.

NASA primarily uses the metric system today, but its past mixing of metric and Imperial units has led to disastrous consequences.

There was once an attempt to establish “metric time,” which would have featured 10-hour days and 100-minute hours, but the idea ultimately failed.

Similarly, just as the United States uses metric units for specific things—such as measuring soda—it is not uncommon for certain fields or countries to unofficially use Imperial or other measurement systems, even if they are officially on the metric system.