How our world measures up
More or Less: Behind the Stats
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The History of the Metric System
The metric system was created by french revolutionaries to replace the tangle of measurement systems used during anchan regime france. But as well as having practical benefits, it also had a political ideology. It was intended to be this sort of expression of scientific enlightenment and rational thinking. The metre is derived from cutting edge science and defined as one ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the quator.
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