ELIZABETH HANSEN

Indus Valley Civilization- 3000–1500 BC developed procedure of standardization, using weights and measures, evident by the excavations made at the Indus valley sites earliest known systems of weights and measures seem to have been created at some time in the 3 rd and 4 th millennia B.C. in the Mesopotamia area The Indus Valley peoples achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time. The decimal system was thought to be used but in fact, feet and inches are a more accurate indication of the measure used. The measuring devices found in the Indus Valley actually meet the standards used in South Indian architecture and engineering which are feet and inches. Other systems were based on the use of parts of the body and the natural surroundings as measuring instruments.

It was based on an actual persons foot length.

They created it in 1790 They wanted to make a universal measurement system

Treaty of the Meter is an international treaty, signed in Paris on May 20,1875 by 17 nations. Set up an institute for the purpose of developing the metric system.

Basic unit of length equal to one ten-millionth of the distance between the North pole and the Equator.

In 1983 we replaced the definition of the meter with its current definition, thus fixing the length of the meter in terms of the second and the speed of light The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.

The Metric Act of 1866, also known as the Kasson Act, is a piece of United States legislation that authorized the use of the metric system.

Altimeter-An instrument which measures vertical distance with respect to a reference level. Clocks- The invention of the quartz watch, mechanical clocks, timekeeping devices, and time measurement. Protractor- An instrument used to construct and measure plane angles. Sextant- The octant could only measure latitude, and not longitude.

The Great Kersten Blunder The great Kersten Blunder is about the error made by Kersten (programmer) on the Vigor space probe's converting program. He made an error in the value of converting millimeters to inches. He mistakenly set the value to 24.5 instead of 25.4 which made the probe miss the planet Venus and was consequently lost in space. This Blunder cost the government over 2 billion dollars' worth of lost technology due to a simple measurement error. Tokyo Disneyland's Space Mountain Derailment The Space mountain roller coaster ride broke an axle during the middle of the ride causing one of the two roller coaster cars to derail on June 26, The reason why the axle broke is because of a conversion error from English units to Metric units. The Gimli Glider Air Canada flight 143 used up all its fuel halfway to its destination at an altitude of 41,000 feet on July 23, The Boeing jet glided safely to the Gimli Industrial Park Airport and avoided disaster. The incident was caused by a measurement conversion error by the pilot on the fuel requirement of the flight.

They are important because having consistency in science is important. If one scientist uses inches and another scientist want to repeat his experiment but he uses the metric system the results could be disastrous.

They are important because plans for products and buildings should be in the same scale so multiple can be created and less money will be wasted.

The metric system

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