Talk:International System of Units/Archives/12/2011

Basic concepts are present in nearly all cultures

I was quite shocked for the following statement:

The near-worldwide adoption of the metric system as a tool of economy and everyday commerce was based to some extent on the lack of customary systems in many countries to adequately describe some concepts, or as a result of an attempt to standardise the many regional variations in the customary system.

I think it's a personal opinion with few basis. Maybe most cultures didn't have units for energy, voltage, or even pressure, but most basic concepts- those more difficult to change- were present on nearly all. So, they had length, weight, time, surface, capacity,... units, just as in the USA. So the reasons for the adoption must be others. International commerce sounds like a good one, or even scientific effort (but I don't dare to add it without research).

Inconexo (talk) 09:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The absence of electrical units from all the traditional units I've read about is a huge gap that makes it difficult to think about the world. Do you actually believe that any traditional system of measurement, apart from the metric system, had electrical units (apart from hybrid units like ohms per 100 feet)? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

No - in the mid 19th Century there were no standards for electrical units. Three systems evolved - the electrostatic system, the electromagnetic system and the MKS system (later to be the MKSA system). The MKSA system was adopted as the basis of SI - See History of the metric system. Martinvl (talk) 21:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)