Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations, the exceptions being the … See more

The etymological roots of metre can be traced to the Greek verb μετρέω (metreo) ((I) measure, count or compare) and noun μέτρον (metron) (a measure), which were used for physical measurement, for poetic metre and … See more

Galileo discovered gravitational acceleration to explain the fall of bodies at the surface of the Earth. He also observed the regularity of the period of swing of the pendulum and that this period depended on the length of the pendul… See more

In France, the metre was adopted as an exclusive measure in 1801 under the Consulate. This continued under the First French Empire until 1812, when Napoleon decreed the introduction of the non-decimal mesures us… See more

SI prefixes can be used to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre, as shown in the table below. Long distances are usually expressed in km, astronomical units (149.6 Gm), light-years (10 Pm), or parsecs (31 … See more

Within this table, "inch" and "yard" mean "international inch" and "international yard" respectively, though approximate conversions in the left column hold for both international and survey units.
"≈" means "… See more

• ISO 1 – standard reference temperature for length measurements
• Metric prefix
• Vertical position See more