While most of the rest of the world uses the metric system (formally known as the International System of Units, or SI), the United States uses the U.S. Customary System, which—fun fact—is ...

This metric system had as its fundamental unit of length the meter, defined to be a small fraction of the length of a meridian of the earth. Other units of length were decimal multiples or fractions ...

At least that’s what I thought until the editors got hold of the story and reminded me that this magazine does not use metric units. Convert all kilometers to miles, they said, all meters to ...