Do you know that the United
States
lost a $125 million space probe in part because of a failure to
communicate units of measure? Rather than communicating in a
standard international system of measurement, some engineers working
on the space probe used non-standard systems of measurement. The
loss of the probe was catastrophic.
But the real problem is the tardiness of the United States to adopt the International System of Units (abbreviated SI) in all its trade, science, and public communications. While scientists around the world and international events like the Olympics use familiar SI units like the meter, the United States lags behind.
This portfolio presents SI's units, prefixes, and links to further information.