Why the metric system matters - Matt Anticole
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-the-metric-system-matters-matt-anticole For the majority of recorded human history, units like the weight of a grain or the length of a hand...
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What does the French Revolutionhave to do with the time NASA accidentally crashed a $200 million orbiterinto the surface of Mars?Actually, everything.That crash happened due to an errorin converting between two measurement systems,U.S. customary unitsand their S.I, or metric, equivalence.So what's the connection to the French Revolution?Let's explain.For the majority of recorded human history,units like the weight of a grain or the length of a hand weren't exactand varied from place to place.And different regions didn't just use varying measurements.They had completely different number systems as well.By the late Middle Ages, the Hindu-Arabic decimal systemmostly replaced Roman numerals and fractions in Europe,but efforts by scholars l...
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What does the French Revolutionhave to do with the time NASA accidentally crashed a $200 million orbiterinto the surface of Mars?Actually, everything.That crash happened due to an errorin converting between two measurement systems,U.S. customary unitsand their S.I, or metric, equivalence.So what's the connection to the French Revolution?Let's explain.For the majority of recorded human history,units like the weight of a grain or the length of a hand weren't exactand varied from place to place.And different regions didn't just use varying measurements.They had completely different number systems as well.By the late Middle Ages, the Hindu-Arabic decimal systemmostly replaced Roman numerals and fractions in Europe,but efforts by scholars l...
