Simply Metric

leader of H2O a little flame and a few grains of sodium oh hello there well now let's see where was I oh yes oh my my my what could I have done wrong well no wonder I was supposed to use grams not grains precise weight or measure is very important in science a little too much of this or not enough of that and well excuse me as I was about to say precise weight and measure are important in man's daily life too and has been for [Applause] centuries before man had a system of weighing and measuring things exactly he could not be sure when things were too short he had no way to determine when things were too heavy he had no way to gauge when things were too narrow or too wide he had no way to judge when he had too much for even when things were too hot he just had no way to measure anything things that we take for granted the size of an axe or the length of a spear had to be developed by early man without the aid of measuring sticks or guides but these primitive estimates were not as reliable as exact measures guess work could not accomplish the task but with trial and error man fashioned workable [Music] tools another man then copied this standard to make his Tool Work Well you can't argue with success I even made mine the same [Music] length oh no yes well sometimes the original standard of measure was lost broken or damaged Beyond repair but little by little man became more clever at his attempts to make standards when there was a job to be done a leader usually set a standard for all to follow if the leader cut a beam to the correct length it was simple for the others to follow the standard the others could simply Follow the Leader by using the same number of arm spans but one man might have shorter arms than the leader and unfortunately this system didn't always work using armspan measurements was fine but arm lengths might vary but as man's need for standards of measure grew his Ingenuity gradually took hold when the Great Pyramids were under construction in ancient Egypt a standard measure was essential the Egyptian Builders used the Cubit which was the distance measured from the tip of the pharaoh's elbow to the tip of his middle finger in this way each Pharaoh or King set the standard for groups of workers to follow during construction only by using such a master standard the length of one man's arm could each worker get those huge stones to fit precisely the ancient Greeks had their own system of measurement too the most common of which was the length of a man's foot for dry or liquid volume the Greek standards were made of pottery and when Greece was conquered by the Romans the Romans adopted most of these same standards the Romans also developed their own system based on the unia their inch of which there were 12 to a foot and the mile which was originally a th000 Paces of a Roman soldier finding a uniform standard to communicate to others could not have been an e easy task crude copies made from the first standard were usually inaccurate and errors became even greater when copies were made from copies and of course by using such a crude tool day after day it became worn and the end product did not always come out the same so as we can see man may have had standards of measure but the materials these standards were made of were not very reliable and often were were difficult to move from place to place or keep from being damaged whoops while he was learning about measurement he was also developing a common means of weighing objects he probably lifted similar objects in each hand at the same time and found that one was heavier than the other through trial and error man found that the balanced load was easier to carry and that led to his discovery of the scale and this principle became very handy when he began to barter with others but here too he ran into trouble because the standard used to weigh something might be different in different communities and there were different standards for different Goods how very confusing to use one set of weights for measuring gold and another for measuring fruit or grain and the list of different standards is almost endless for special units of length and weight there were the line the tail the tally the link the fathom perch pole chain furong cable length Rod enna medium foot Gad quarantine League Pace palm hand L yard foot inches The Miner the stone Talent shekele cat sack clove Calvin butt pipe thin steak Suma ton long ton short ton award Crown Point Troy towns pwns and rs oh [Music] no [Applause] well what a mess about the time of the French Revolution science began to grow and demand more precise ways of communicating weights and [Music] measures frch scientists measured a certain portion of the Earth's surface divided it into standard lengths and defined the meter they all agreed after looking into the problem that 1 10 millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator would set the standard for the meter they would work from after they agreed upon the meter weights and volume measurements could be established which they were the standard measure for weight became the gram and liter came to be the liquid or dry material measure while the gram was the standard used for measuring small amounts the kilogram a thousand times the size of the gram was used for larger amounts precise samples had to be made and put into the archives for safekeeping it was a good way to set an example and encourage others to use the system but most importantly they made these samples very accurately and from a material that was highly resistant to corrosion Platinum Platinum was ideal for its purposes it was a stable metal it would not expand and contract during temperature changes which meant it would stay the same size and platinum couldn't easily be coaxed out of shape to shorten length or decrease volume capacity finally in 1799 after thousands of years of error argument and Chaos permanent standards were achieved and although the metric system was not adopted immediately by every country it was eventually accepted throughout the world as the first International standard of measurement and for good reason metric arithmetic is simple it is based on multiples of 10 as a guide for measuring distances length weight volume or temperature the length of something or the distance along a line is measured in meters for instance a door is approximately 2 m high and if we want it to fit a space exactly 2 m we can make it exactly that 2 [Music] [Applause] m but if we want to measure a smaller distance like the width of the door the meter is too large a [Music] unit because the meter is broken up into 100 parts we can measure a shorter distance without any trouble so we are now measuring in 1 100s of a meter or since CTI means 1/ 100 in cm the door is 81 CM wide to measure the thickness of the door we must use even smaller units of measure than cm because centimet are not small enough now the meter can also be broken up into 1,000 equal parts and we can measure a much shorter distance Millie means 1 1,000 so we are now measuring in 1,000 of a meter or millimet the door is 33 mm thick as we have seen 100 cm make a meter and 1,000 mm make a meter it's simple CTI means divided by 100 and Millie means divided by 1,000 but now my problem is that if I want to measure how far it is to the next city or across town say to my brother's used bookstore on 18th Street the meter is too short a long distance like down a street or along a highway would require too many meters I need some unit of measure longer than a meter to describe the distance here we multiply the meter by 1,000 to measure the longer distance more conveniently kilo means 1,000 so we are measuring 1,000 M at a time or kilometers my brother's bookstore across town is about 4 kilometers away just remember that for measuring length or distance along any line use the key unit meter for small distances use millimet and ctim and for long distances use [Music] kilometer if we want to measure liquid using the metric system the key is liter one liter is the contents of a cube exactly 10 cm on a side the form surrounding the contents or the shape of the container may vary but the contents will always measure the same 1 lit is also a little more than the contents of Four small bottles of soda pop but to measure one bottle we need a smaller unit of liquid measure for that we use [Music] milliliter just as before Millie means 1 1,000 and we are now measuring in 1,000 of a liter or milliliters one small bottle of soda is a little more than 250 ml multiply liter by 1,000 and we have Kil kilers are used for measuring really large amounts of liquid don't forget for measuring liquid use the key metric unit liter for small volumes use milliliter and for large amounts of liquid use kiler now for measuring weight or mass we use another metric unit of measure the gam a paper clip is about 1 g in [Music] weight but if we want to weigh a tiny pin we need a unit smaller than a gram so we divide the gram by 1,000 and use the milligram that's right we're using Millie again or 1 1,000 of a [Music] gram of course for weighing things larger than pins or paper clips such as people or fruit we need a larger unit of measure we just multiply G by 1,000 add kilo again and get kilog or about the weight of five mediumsized Apples by the way 1 kg is the weight of 1 liter of distilled water at sea level keep in mind the key unit for metric weight or mass is G for very tiny amounts use migs and for heavier objects use [Music] kilog now this just leaves one more thing for us to cover temperature in the metric system we use a thermometer measured in Celsius named for the man who invented the metric thermometer the Celsius thermometer is also based on T 0° C is the temperature of water when it freezes normal body temperature is 37° C and and 100° C is the temperature of water when it boils and turns to steam oh my oh no well I'm certainly glad that's over now the important thing to remember is that in the metric system meters are unit for measuring the lengths along a line and depending on how long a line we want to measure we can use either cenm or millimet for short distances or kilomet for longer ones liters measure liquid volumes and milliliters are used for smaller quantities kilers are used for very large [Music] volumes G and millgram are used for measuring smaller weight or mass and kilog are used for weighing large objects and for temperature we use celsius now all of these metric measurements are based on a key unit and these can either be broken down into smaller units for measuring smaller quantities or they can be multiplied into larger units to measure larger quantities the use of T 100s and 1,000s makes it all very simple there are quantities and units that we haven't talked about and some others very important to science and engineering but you can investigate those yourself and that's basically how the metric system works and now you can make it work for you you may even find the metric system helpful when doing things like building a home for some of your little Feathered Friends [Music] oh my goodness here we go again