b>International System of Units (abbreviated SI from French: Le Système international d'unités) is the modern form of the metric system. Published in 1960, it comprises a coherent system of units of measurement built around seven base units, 22 named and an indeteminate number of unnamed coherent derived units and a set prefixes that act as decimal-based multipliers. It is based on the metre-kilogram-second system, rather than the centimetre-gram-second system, which, in turn, had several variants. The SI has been declared to be an evolving system; thus prefixes and units are created and unit definitions are modified through international agreement as the technology of measurement progresses, and as the precision of measurements improves. SI is the world's most widely used system of measurement, used in both everyday commerce and science.
The system has been nearly globally adopted with Burma, Liberia and the United States not having adopted SI units as their official system of weights and measures. While only the US does not commonly use metric units outside of science, medicine, and the government, the United Kingdom has officially adopted a partial metrication policy, with no intention of replacing imperial units entirely. Canada has adopted it for most purposes but imperial units are still legally permitted and remain in common use throughout a few sectors of Canadian society, particularly in the buildings, trades and railways sectors.
Read more about International System Of Units: History, SI Brochure and Conversion Factors, Units and Prefixes
Famous quotes containing the words international system of, system and/or units:
“It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and sub-atomic, and galactic
structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?”
—Paddy Chayefsky (19231981)
“Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.”
—Franz Grillparzer (17911872)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbours household, and, underneath, anothersecret and passionate and intensewhich is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (18731947)