Scaling up

摘要

The metric system of measurement was invented by French scientists in the early 1790s and imposed on the populace by the leaders of the French Revolution. For about a year, the revolutionaries even attempted to introduce a decimal clock, with each day divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 minutes and each minute into 100 seconds. Napoleon Bonaparte later congratulated the scientists: "Conquests will come and go, but this work will endure."