Metric System international commerce

Long the language universally used in science, the SI has become the dominant language of international commerce and trade. The system is nearly universally employed, and most countries do not even maintain official definitions of any other units. A notable exception is the United States, which continues to use customary units in addition to SI. In the United Kingdom, conversion to metric units is government policy, but the transition is not quite complete. Those countries that still recognize non-SI units (e. g., the US and UK) have redefined their traditional non-SI units in SI units. 

The common standard units in the International System, their abbreviations, and the quantities they measure are given in Table 2.2. Other units are derived from these units. The metric system, or International System, is currently used by most of the countries in the world, not only in scientific and technical work, but also in commerce and industry. 

SI The International System of Units (Systeme International d Unites) is a modernized version of the metric system estabUshed by international agreement. It provides a logical and interconnected framework for aU measurements in science, industry and commerce. Officially abbreviated SI, the system is built upon a foundation of seven base units. 

All data in this handbook are given in the International System of Units (Systeme International d Unites), abbreviated internationally to SI, which is the modern metric system of measurement and is acknowledged worldwide. The system of SI units was introduced by the General Conference of Weights and Measures (Conference Generate des Poids et Mesures), abbreviated internationally to CGPM, in 1960. The system not only is used in science, but also is dominant in technology, industrial production, and international commerce and trade. 

In the United States, measurements made with metric units were not legally accepted in commerce until 1866. In 1875 the United States became a signatory to the Metric Convention, and by 1890 it received copies of the International Prototype meter and kilogram. However, rather than converting our measurement system to metric, in 1893 Congress decided that the International Prototype units... 

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