In the meantime, a new system of weights and measures, developed by French scientists following the Revolution of 1789, gained increasing international use. This metric system had as its fundamental ...

NARRATOR: The metric system is a way of measuring things. So with length, the metric measurements are millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres. A stamp, would be measured in millimetres.

A nanometer (nm) is a unit of length in the metric system, defined as one billionth (10-9) of a meter (m). The meter is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), making the ...

In other words, the French introduced not only national standards, but a system of standards. It survives today as the metric system.