When comparing or combining an area or volume it is important to measure the objects using the same units. Without converting the areas into the same unit, it might be difficult to tell, for example, ...

Before measuring something, it is important to know which unit to use. Estimating its approximate size by comparing it with a more familiar object can help. In order to find a suitable unit of measure ...

December 23, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, designed to bring US weights and measures in line ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

Americans have long used diverse weights and measures, reflecting their diverse origins. From colonial times, converting from one unit to another was part of courses in commercial arithmetic. The ...

The humorist Dave Barry has more than once suggested "millipedes" as an imaginary unit of measurement (for example, 120 miles = 2,342,424,323.3432 millipedes), poking fun at the inscrutability of the ...

The ongoing use of the imperial system in the United States, despite the global adoption of the metric system, raises intriguing questions about tradition, practicality, and cultural identity. This ...

The week of Oct. 10 – that's 10/10 – is National Metric Week because the metric system is based on powers of 10. To change from one unit to another within the system, one has only to move the decimal ...

Have you ever noticed that systems of measurement tends to change when you leave the United States? Weight is typically measured in kilograms instead of pounds, distance is measured in kilometers over ...