Metrication is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. The United Kingdom, through voluntary and mandated laws, has metricated most of government, industry, commerce, and
Loose tomatoes for sale at a UK greengrocer in 2013, dual-priced in imperial (£0.99/lb) and metric (£2.18/kg) units.
Gunter's chain – one of Britain's earliest decimal‑based measuring devices (each link being 1⁄1000 furlong or 201 mm) greatly simplified the measurement of land area.
Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. Judges in the exhibition were hampered by the variety of units of measure in use.
Joule's heat apparatus, 1845
History of the metric system
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The history of the metric system began during the Age of Enlightenment with measures of length and weight derived from nature, along with their decimal multiples and fractions. The system became the s
Metrication in the United Kingdom
…use of traditional units alongside metric units was finally removed. British scientists, philosophers and engineers have been at the forefront of the development of metrication. In 1861 a committee from the British Association for Advancement of Science (BAAS), whose members included James Prescott Joule, Lord Kelvin, and James…
James Watt, British inventor and advocate of an international decimalised system of measure
The north and south sections of the meridional survey met at Rodez cathedral, seen here dominating the Rodez skyline
The Paris meridian which passes through the Paris Observatory (Observatoire de Paris). The metre was defined along this meridian using a survey that stretched from Dunkirk to Barcelona.
U.S. national prototype of the metre, showing the bar number (#27), the Tresca cross-section and one of the lines