Why is there a need for standardization in measurement in the world today?

Question

Why is there a need for standardization in measurement in the world today?

Answer 1

so the entire world in a sense is on "the same page" so we don't s***w things up

Answer 2

For issential practical purposes like :

* You can certainly tell 564 kg is greater than 361 kg. this makes sense. However, If you want to compare 564 kg with 341 lbm, this will be confusing.

For design and construction purposes, like :

  * Although 25.4 mm = 1 inch. We cannot use a 1 inch diameter bolt as a spare part in place of a 25 mm diameter bolt. Because it is not "orecisely" equall to each other.

. If the market has only 0.327 inch bolts , this will not work

Answer 3

Fiascos are only part of the picture.

Standardisation does not always mean using the same unit, sometimes it means agreeing on how big that unit is.

When we trade, we need to agree on standards.

I want this may tonnes, or tons of iron.  

If the supplier has scales that read 4% lower than yours, you are in for an arguement.

For items that are life-critical, or traded in huge volumes, such as oil, you can imaging that if the difference in scales is only small, the difference in profit over a year can still be vast.

Standards organisations work very hard to have agreed standards, agreed accuracies & agreed methods for use & comparison. Whenever possible they relate standards to primary quantities from physics: fundamental constants that may be tricky to measure accurately, but at least are the same for everyone.  Everytime you buy something, be it a coke, or a hamburger, & it turns out to be what you expect, you are using the fact that people agree on the amount of sugar, or beef, or whatever in the product.

Answer 4

Because big dominant USA still does about half its stuff in the "English" system rather than metric and so stupidities like a NASA contractor doing all its work in American when it was supposed to use metric and then failing to convert properly so a very expensive satellite spent months going to Mars and crashed due to incorrect power settings.

  Standardized measurements reduce costs because the cost of conversion is absent, training is easier, and fewer errors occur.