If scientists had sacred objects, this would be one of them: a single, closely guarded 137-year-old cylinder of metal, housed in a vault outside of Paris. It is a prototype that precisely defines a ...

In prehistoric times, not much needed to be measured. You ate what you found and lived where you could. The advent of agriculture and civilization, however, necessitated a way for people to measure ...

As ever more digital data is created and stored, the world needs more unit measurements to keep up with the ever-expanding numbers. To do so, the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures on ...

Scientists have approved the introduction of four new prefixes that can be applied to units of measurement in the metric system. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

The Imperial Measurement System, originated in Britain in 1824, is now primarily used by only three countries: the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar. Defined by non-decimal units like inches, pounds ...

Using a state-of-the-art device for measuring mass, researchers have made their most precise determination yet of Planck's constant, an important value in science that will help to redefine the ...

The system the academy created was beautifully simple, and driven by the notion of deriving measurements from nature. The basic unit of length, the metre (or meter if you will) would be equal to one ...

Balancing act The two systems of measurement – imperial and metric – are often used together in UK shops. (Courtesy: iStock/Paolo Paradiso) When I was at primary school in the 1960s, measurements were ...