What Systems of Measurement Are Used Throughout the World?


Article Summary: The inadequate common standards resulted in many confusions and huge ineffectiveness in trade among nations. Hence, at the end of this century, the French government wanted to get rid of this issue by formulating a system of measurement to use it throughout the world.

By the end of eighteenth century, throughout the world, people have frequently used a range of different units and systems of measurement. For instance, people measured length in inches, feet, miles, cubits, spans, hands, palms, furlongs, rods, leagues chains, and so on.

The inadequate common standards resulted in many confusions and huge ineffectiveness in trade among nations. Hence, at the end of this century, the French government wanted to get rid of this issue by formulating a system of measurement to use it throughout the world.

Different Aspects of Measurement Used:

The Decimal System

It is the commonly used system of measurement and calculations. It is derived from the Latin word Decimus. The key rule of the decimal system is that 10 is a new unit from where the decimal counting begins again. Next, people calculate the multiples of 10 by the same systems as 1 to 9.

The Metric System

It is a French phrase related to the French term for measure. It is a decimal system of measuring made by French Law during the era of French Revolution and used by the people throughout the world widely. This system uses meter as its basic unit, liter as its basic capacity unit, and grams as its basic mass or weight unit.

Common Computer Measurements:

Hertz & Megahertz

Hertz is the frequency unit. The insignia for hertz is Hz. One hertz denotes one cycle in a second. The shaft of light behind your PC will get across the entire monitor at least 60 times each second, if the monitor is not to flicker. This is described as a 60 Hz of refresh rate. The velocity of your computer processor is measured in terms of megahertz. One megahertz denotes one million cycles in a second. The insignia for megahertz is MHz.

Megabyte and Gigabyte

Your PC's file size and storage capacities are measured in terms of bytes. A byte has adequate space to save or store one character or letter. If you follow-up the naming convention for the system of metric, a kilobyte might represent one thousand byte, similar to kilometer which represents one thousand meters, whereas a kilogram is one thousand grams.

Generally, this is a fact, because the basic function of a computer is in twos (the binary system) and not in tens (the metric system). However, several people contemplated that, it would great to have byte measurements in handy numbers via the binary system.

Hence, people refer byte measurements as:

  • 1 kilobyte is 1,024 bytes or simply one thousand bytes.
  • 1 megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes or about one million bytes.
  • 1 gigabyte is 1.073,741,824 bytes or one thousand million bytes.

Temperature

Cold or hot is usually measured in concern with two points: The point on which a matter or substance transforms from solid to liquid state, or liquid to solid state is freezing point. The point at which a substance transforms from liquid to a vapor, or vapor to liquid state is the boiling point. Every substance transforms at different temperatures, so one usual base substance used is water.

Centigrade or Celsius scale, as it is widely known is actually a decimal scale. It scales or measures the freezing point of water at 0 degree and the boiling point at 100 degrees.

Natural Units of Measurement:

Natural units are natural, since the source of their explanation arrives only from properties of nature and not from any artificial source. Different varieties of system of natural units are possible to measure.

Below is a list of some of the natural units of measurement:

1. Planck units

2. Stoney units

3. Schrodinger units

4. Geometric unit systems

5. Electronic units

6. Quantum electrodynamical units

7. Atomic units