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| Version | Summary | Created by | Modification | Content Size | Created at | Operation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Camila Xu | -- | 1916 | 2022-11-03 01:38:20 |
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The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction, and trade. Early standard units might only have applied to a single community or small region, with every area developing its own standards for lengths, areas, volumes and masses. Often such systems were closely tied to one field of use, so that volume measures used, for example, for dry grains were unrelated to those for liquids, with neither bearing any particular relationship to units of length used for measuring cloth or land. With development of manufacturing technologies, and the growing importance of trade between communities and ultimately across the Earth, standardized weights and measures became critical. Starting in the 18th century, modernized, simplified and uniform systems of weights and measures were developed, with the fundamental units defined by ever more precise methods in the science of metrology. The discovery and application of electricity was one factor motivating the development of standardized internationally applicable units.
References
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (January 2004), "History of measurement", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Stevin.html .
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (January 2004), "History of measurement", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Mouton.html .
- Jefferson, Thomas (4 July 1790). "Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States Communicated to the House of Representatives, July 13, 1790". New York. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffplan.asp.
- Linklater, Andro (2002). Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy. Walker & Co. ISBN 978-0-8027-1396-4. https://archive.org/details/measuringamerica00link.
- Buchholz, Katharina (6 June 2019). "Only Three Countries in the World (Officially) Still Use the Imperial System". https://www.statista.com/chart/18300/countries-using-the-metric-or-the-imperial-system/. "The UK is the country stuck in the middle of both systems, being the birthplace of the imperial system itself. Here, metric is partially adopted but miles persist, and people routinely refer to pints, miles per gallon, pounds and even stone in their everyday lives."
