Metric units have conquered the globe, but in the US and the UK, their presence has become part of a culture war between ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’ values. is a senior reporter who has covered AI ...

December 23, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, designed to bring US weights and measures in line with the rest of the world. The United States is one of the last holdouts ...

Following the loss of the Mars Climate Observer, the NASA Office of Inspector General initiated a review of the Agency’s use of the metric system. By law and policy, the metric system is the preferred ...

Ever wondered what happened to our country’s conversion to the metric system? I did too. So, I did some digging and turned up some dead bodies in the process. Advertisement Article continues below ...

If you know your U.S. history, there have been several attempts to adopt the metric system, all to no avail. It's the universal standard for most of the world and way more intuitive, yet the chances ...

The week of Oct. 10 – that's 10/10 – is National Metric Week because the metric system is based on powers of 10. To change from one unit to another within the system, one has only to move the decimal ...

The Imperial Measurement System, originated in Britain in 1824, is now primarily used by only three countries: the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar. Defined by non-decimal units like inches, pounds ...

Meet the metric system’s newest prefixes: ronna-, quetta-, ronto- and quecto-. Science News spoke with Richard Brown, head of metrology at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, England, ...

Here’s a good trivia question: What are the only 3 countries in the world that do not use the metric system? Everybody knows the good ol’ hard headed USA is in there, but the other two? How about ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American I’ve met a lot of people and learned a lot ...