Word: metrication
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...When the metric system was devised by French revolutionists in 1791, its fundamental unit, the meter ("measure" in Greek), was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance between the earth's poles and its equator. Since this distance is hard to determine accurately, it was abandoned, and the standard meter bar put in its place. Most nations have copies of it. Even the stiff-necked British check their "standard foot" against the meter...
...Paris meter bar has served the world well, but there are two things wrong with it. Modern techniques of measurement make the fine engraved lines on the bar seem coarse and irregular. Then too, many scientists feel that the metric system should not be based on an arbitrary length, but upon some length taken from nature itself. Then, if all the meter bars were destroyed (by atomic war, for instance), the standard could be reestablished, as good as ever, when the radioactive smoke had cleared away...
...directed Congress to fix the standards of weights & measures, Congress did nothing about it for 80 years. Congressmen were passionately interested in the subject, but they could not agree. Repeatedly Washington begged Congress to pass a standardization law; in 1795 he suggested that the U.S. adopt the new French metric system. Jefferson thought he had a better idea: he wanted a system based on the length of a uniform cylindrical pendulum which, at 45° N. latitude, would move at the rate of one beat a second. Congress did not go for that, either...
...conference even had a code name -"Metric." Said a disappointed French delegate after the conference: "We regarded it as a hopeful sign that the British, who usually insist on measuring things with their feet, invented this code name 'Metric'; we thought they were coming over to continental ideas. We came here with the idea de bousculer les Anglais. We should know by now you can't light fires under the British...
What had happened? In Washington last week, a dollarwise businessman, temporarily turned ECA official, looked up from his crop reports and exultantly pointed out some world food facts: wheat fields all over Europe are rich with promise; ECA countries' estimated crop of 30 million metric tons is only 5% under prewar production; the U.S., with the second-largest crop in its history-and some help from Canada-can make up what Europe needs...