Ancient System of

Measurement
 Measurement
 The word measure comes from the Latin word
“mensura” and from the Greek word “metron”.
 Measurement is the process by which human being
obtain useful quantitative information about the
different physical aspects of objects such as length,
weight, area, volume, time, and temperature.
 It is the length from the point of the elbow to the tip of
the middle finger. The cubit was the unit most
frequently used.
 Span is the length from the end of the thumb from the end
of the thumb to the tip of the little finger.
 Palm is the length from the breadth of the thumb to the
tip of the four fingers at the knuckles.
 It is the length from the breadth of the first or middle
finger.
History of the English System
of measurement
The English System

 Is the measurement adopted by the United States even

the metric system was lawfully accepted for use
internationally.
 The human foot became a standard unit for the early
Greeks. The Romans adopted the human foot in
measuring short distances.
 Inch came from the Latin word uncia, which means
“a twelfth.”

Mile came from the Latin word “mille passum”,

which means “a thousand paces.”

Yard a unit of linear measure that is equal to 3 feet.

Pound which means “the weight”. One-twelfth of a
pound was equal to an uncia, from which the
word ounce was derived.
The English System

 Began in the 12th century. In 1100-1135, Henry I started

with the yard. He decided that the yard was to be the
distance from the tip of his nose to the end of his thumb.
 The English System

 During the 16th century, the inch was described as the

length of three grains of barley.
The English System

 In 1558-1603, Elizabeth I decreed that a mile shall be

equal to 5,280 feet.
The English System

 The pound started with the Greeks, which means “the

weight”. One-twelfth of a pond was equal to an uncia,
from which the word ounce was derived.
The English System
 The bushel was the most important unit for dry measure,
gallon was for liquid measure during the 13th century.
The gallon came from a French word that means “bowl”
and bushel came from the French word biossel.

bushel gallon
History of the metric System of
measurement
 The Metric System

 In 1618-1694, Gabriel Mouton founded the metric

system. He used milliare, the length of an arc of a great
circle of the earth as the principal unit of length.
 The Metric System

 In 1790, the French Academy Committees were

appointed to study and later introduced the new system
of weights and measures in France.
 In 1791, the committees recommended the use of ten-
millionth of the length of the meridian from the North
pole to the equator and later, this length was given the
name metre, which came from the Greek word metron.
The Metric System

 Is a decimal system of measurement, which was created

in 1799 in France and agreed on internationally.
 In 1837, an act was passed stating that after 1840, only
the decimal metric system would be considered accepted
lawful for weights and measures.
The Metric System

 In 1875, the Conférence Généralé des Poids et Mesures

(CGPM), the controlling body for the metric system, was
formed.
 In 1900, metre, kilogram, and second were used in
Britain and the USA.
 In 1971, the mole was adopted as the unit of amount of
substance.
The International System of Unit (SI)
 Has been described as a modernized metric system. This
was formerly called the metre-kilogram-second (MKS
system).
 The SI unit in every country is based on the metric
system.
 In 1866, the metric system was lawfully accepted for use
in the United States but has not adopted as its official
system of measurement.
U.S. English System of Measurement
Length
1 foot (ft) 12 inches (in)
1 yard (yd) 3 feet (ft)
1 mile (mi) 5 280 feet (ft)
1 mile (mi) 1 760 yards (yd)
U.S. English System of Measurement

Weight
1 pound (lb) 16 ounces (oz)
1 ton (t) 2 000 pounds (lbs)
U.S. English System of Measurement
Capacity
1 tablespoon (tbsp) 3 teaspoons (tsp)
1 cup (c) 16 tablespoons (tbsp)
1 cup (c) 8 fluid ounces (fl. Oz)
1 pint (pt) 2 cups (c)
1 quart (qt) 2 pints (pt)
1 gallon (gal) 4 quarts (qt)