Ans: Everything we see around us, starting from the amount of salt you add into your food to the length of the field where you race with your friends, has a way to be measured. Now let’s know about the measuring system which helps you measure almost everything around you! That system is known as the ‘Metric System’ of measurements. Our everyday life is so easy because of it. Every country (well almost, except the United States, Myanmar and Liberia!) officially accepts it as their standard measuring system.

This system of measurement is a decimal measuring system that lets you measure different objects according to their length, height, weights, or volume!
Like, you can know the length of a rod in terms of metres or the distance from your home to your school in kilometres.

Of course, you know that the multiple of 10 is easier and faster than counting in the multiples of 7 or 9 right!? The whole metric system is based on that! The multiples of 10! You just have to multiply or divide by some factor of 10.
E.g., when somebody asks you, how many meters are there in one kilometre?
You can say, 1 kilometre = 1000 meters

Some distinctive prefixes are used by the metric system to identify really big or small objects. Like if someone wants to say that the distance between their home and school is 1,00,000 centimetres, you can just say that the distance is 1 kilometre. That’s simple!

Most of the countries use the metric system as a standard for their units of measurements. Educators, students, governments and scientists – everyone benefit from this and stay on the same page. Students pursuing careers in scientific majors, such as careers in mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, medicine, and computer science can use one system of measurement to solve problems and configure scientific and mathematical calculations. Also, computer HDD space (hard disk drives), memory and processor speed are all measured in SI units, which makes it simple to use a computer from anywhere.

Now while you know how the metric system works, let’s understand what its basic units to measure different things are. The seven basic units of SI system are: temperature (K), distance (m), electric current (A), time (s), amount of substance (mol), mass (kg), intensity of light (cd).