Jim McGillis, age 14, of Kingston, Ont., Canada, for his question:

WHO THOUGHT OF THE METRIC SYSTEM?

In the 1880s, a small portion of France was donated to become the international home of the metric system. The famous place is at Sevres, near Paris. Here, world scientists carry on superfine work in the tricky business of weights and measures. Here, every six years the international General Conference on Weights and Measures meets to survey progress and possible improvements.   Our remote ancestors invented units of weight, length and volume as they took up building, handcrafts, swapping and trading. The planet earth does not provide these neat units, so various tribes and early nations invented different units of their own. In time, as trade and travel became more common, these various measuring systems led to a lot of desperate confusion.

Obviously the logical answer was a set of standard units to be used by all nations. Strange to say, so far as we know, nobody suggested a possible improvement until 1670. In that year, Gabriel Mouton suggested units related to a global circle. He was the vicar of St. Paul’s church at Lyons. The next year, Jean Picard, another logical Frenchman, suggested a very similar idea.

These two men started the move toward a simplified system of international weights and measures. But they did not live to see their ideas blossom into the metric system. For more than a century, scholars wrestled with the possibilities. At last, in 1791, the Paris Academy of Sciences presented a basic plan to the French National Assembly.

This plan was based on the meter and the kilogram and used the logical decimal system of tens. Though refinements were made later, it was the basis for the modern metric system. Numerous scholars and teams of scholars worked through several generations to make it possible.

Obviously the metric system is the logical answer to a lot of age old confusions. One would expect the world to welcome and adopt it without further ado. But, as we know, many nations still lag behind. Someday, they promise, we must give up our bewildering old weights and measures and adopt this newfangled metric system.

Meantime, the International Bureau in France toils to make the neat metric system even more precise. And one by one the nations of the world adopt the excellent system and discard their ancient confusions.