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 ...

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 ...

Have you ever noticed that systems of measurement tends to change when you leave the United States? Weight is typically measured in kilograms instead of pounds, distance is measured in kilometers over ...

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 ...

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 ...

1 In late 1975, President Gerald Ford had a unique vision for making America great again. He wanted to embrace a French invention – one that Thomas Jefferson himself had championed. He wanted America ...

Americans have long used diverse weights and measures, reflecting their diverse origins. From colonial times, converting from one unit to another was part of courses in commercial arithmetic. The ...

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 ...