metric

The metric system is an internationally recognised decimalised system of measurement. It is in widespread use, and where it is adopted, it is the only or most common system of weights and measures. It is now known as the International System of Units (SI). It is used to measure everyday things such as the mass of a sack of flour, the height of a person, the speed of a car, and the volume of fuel in its tank. It is also used in science, industry and trade.
The first nation to adopt the metric system (a process called metrication) was France, in the 1790s. In subsequent decades and centuries, most other nations adopted it in part or in full, with notable holdouts being Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States (which primarily uses U.S. customary units).
In its modern form, it consists of a set of base units: metre for length, kilogram for mass, second for time, ampere for electrical current, kelvin for temperature, candela for luminous intensity and mole for quantity. These, together with their derived units, can measure any physical quantity. Metric system may also refer to other systems of related base and derived units defined before the middle of the 20th century, some of which are still in limited use today.
The metric system was designed to have properties that make it easy to use and widely applicable, including units based on the natural world, decimal ratios, prefixes for multiples and sub-multiples, and a structure of base and derived units. It is also a coherent system, which means that its units do not introduce conversion factors not already present in equations relating quantities. It has a property called rationalisation that eliminates certain constants of proportionality in equations of physics.
The units of the metric system, originally taken from observable features of nature, are now defined by phenomena such as the microwave frequency of a caesium atomic clock which accurately measures seconds. One unit, the kilogram, was defined in terms of a man-made artefact until recently, but its precise definition now depends on a fixed numerical value for Planck's constant. The new definition was formally propagated on 20 May 2019.
While there are numerous named derived units of the metric system, such as the watt and lumen, other common quantities such as velocity and acceleration do not have their own unit, but are defined in terms of existing base and derived units such as metres per second for velocity.
Units of the British imperial system and the related US customary system are officially defined in terms of the metric system. Notably, as per the International Yard and Pound Agreement the base units of the Imperial and Customary system are defined in terms of the metre and kilogram.
The metric system is also extensible, and new derived units are defined as needed in fields such as radiology and chemistry. The most recent derived unit, the katal, for catalytic activity, was added in 1999. Recent changes are directed toward defining base units in terms of invariant constants of physics to provide more precise realisations of units for advances in science and industry.

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